
FT MEADE 
GenCol1 


























p 



THE ESOTERIC 

ART OF LIVING 




By Joseph Stewart, LL.M. 

» 



NEW YORK 

THE ALLIANCE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
“Life” Building 




1 




16562 


Library of Congress 

Two Copies Received 

JUL Q 1900 

Copyright entry 

/M ?> '?<*> 

"• A * 

FIRST COPY. 

2nd Copy Delivered to 

ORDER DIVISIONS 


Copyright, 1900, 
By Joseph Stewart. 


ROONEY**® OTTEN 
^printing coi 












CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Some Basic Philosophy. 5 

CHAPTER II. 

Mental States and Selected Consciousness. 12 

CHAPTER III. 

Eliminative and Constructive Mentation. 20 

CHAPTER IV. 

Original Thought and Free Expression. 26 

CHAPTER V. 

Self-Revelation. 35 

CHAPTER VI. 

Subliminal Consciousness. ,.44 

CHAPTER VII. 

Subliminal Consciousness— ( Continued ) . 54 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Rationale of Concentration.64 

• 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Normal and the Supernormal.71 












For all experience (living) there is a common basis, which 
may be found in the inherent potential nature of man and his 
adjustment to environment. The diversity of expression and 
adjustment is as great as the multitude of individuals. Not 
all expressions and adjustments are happy, beneficent, wise, 
or progressive. Surely it is desirable to discriminate, and to 
inquire as to what will facilitate the best expression of the 
innate powers and possibilities and effect the most beneficent 
adjustment to environment. 


THE ESOTERIC ART OF LIVING. 


CHAPTER I. 


Some Basic Philosophy. 


The Universe and man are inseparable. Universal law de¬ 
fines the individual expression as well as correlates all in the 
One. Individual consciousness differentiates the Universal, 
and evolves through sense, and psychic, to the higher states, by 
means of the life in which the ego seeks to express in ever- 
increasing degree of perfection the subliminal nature and wis¬ 
dom. The higher life is a constant relating of consciousness 
to the Unchanging and the Permanent, and the emergence of 
the subliminal consciousness and its synchronizing with the 
supraliminal or objective consciousness. The art of living this 
life is first sought in the mastery of mind. 

Whence? Whither? These are the eternal interroga¬ 
tories that haunt the human mind. Dismiss them if you will; 
let the imperative world crowd them into the background of 
thought; but they will return with perennial freshness and de¬ 
mand consideration. “A wail between two silences” has not 
sufficed to express the philosophy of the soul. 

Primitive man inquired of the sun and stars and read their 
silent message; the winds whispered great secrets to him, and 
Nature became an oracle through which he believed .he com¬ 
muned with a higher intelligence. With us, the thoughtful 
child eagerly puts the question; but, receiving no satisfactory 
answer, or one quite irrational,, soon ceases the inquiry; and 
the man dismisses it in favor of the more urgent problems of 
life, possibly to revert to it in declining age. But with the 
philosopher it is ever present. If he decides, it is only pro¬ 
visionally—only so far as the evidence at hand will justify, and 




6 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


always subject to revision upon the receipt of further light. 
Like the poet Shelley, he looks inquiringly into the eyes of 
children and asks the question. He searches the halls of mem¬ 
ory for some recovery of the past, and tries to fathom the 
secrets of prophetic intuition to lift the veil from the future. 

Thus the Sphinx sits by the path that each soul must travel; 
and to solve the riddle many have searched the universe of 
thought, and can say, with the Persian poet: 

“You wish to know the secret—so did I. 

Low in the dust I sought it, and on high 
Sought it in awful flight from star to star,” 

—and, like him, have concluded that the search is vain, though 
ever feeling that the “secret draweth near,” and that— 

“Sometimes on the instant all seems plain, 

The simple sun could tell us, or the rain. 

The world caught dreaming with a look of heaven 
Seems on a sudden tip-toe to explain.” 

Yet it must be admitted that the search has not been all 
in vain. The achievements in scientific thought, the advance¬ 
ment in modern metaphysics, and the study of Oriental philoso¬ 
phy have brought us to a much better understanding of the 
problem; while the systematic and intelligent work in psychic 
research has disclosed many of the latent and higher powers 
of the soul and given us some insight into the states of exist¬ 
ence that succeed the physical—wresting much from the 
domain of agnosticism. 

To-day we know that man is an integral part of the Uni¬ 
verse, related to every part as intimately and indissolubly as a 
planet or a sun. The elements of the material universe we 
know are constant and ever have been so. Nothing has ever 
been added, and nothing subtracted. There is a constant 
change of form and aspect, but no change in quantity. If one 
atom could be annihilated it would throw the whole into con¬ 
fusion; for that atom is intimately related to all others, and 
they exist as they are by reason of that interrelationship. The 
proposition is equally true of a supposed creation of an atom. 


Some Basic Philosophy . 


7 


Energy also is constant, though ever changing in form. In 
short, there is nothing known with which science deals, either 
as matter or energy, that can be annihilated or created. They 
always have been; they always will be, in essence—only sub¬ 
ject to infinite change of form and mode of manifestation. 

Shall we say less of the soul-wo rid, the residuum that sci¬ 
ence cannot resolve—that ultimate realm in which the cause of 
manifestation lies? Whether you trace matter back in condi¬ 
tion to one homogeneous ether, with its vortex-ring as an atom 
in whose inherent energy you postulate soul-life, or whether 
you hold to matter and spirit as two distinct and parallel ele¬ 
ments, you cannot consistently deny the eternal persistence of 
soul in the past and soul in the future. An impulsion in the 
ether occurs in the most remote realm of space; the farthest 
visible star transmits an energy to its envelope. With the 
rapidity of 186,000 miles a second, the atom takes up and com¬ 
municates the motion, until after many years the atom immedi¬ 
ately in contact with the optic nerve feels the impulse, and the 
consciousness translates it into a concept of light. What does 
this mean? Not merely that the body is in intimate relation 
of action and reaction with the distant star, but that the soul 
is as intimately related to the psychic factor everywhere pres¬ 
ent—the cause of the manifestation. 

Hence we may say that the idea of the solidarity of the 
Universe includes man as a psychic being. He cannot be taken 
out of it; his history is inextricably woven in its past history, 
and his destiny is indissolubly linked with and held in its future. 
Man and the universe are one in history and one in destiny. 
This does not mean, however, that he will always be as he is, 
any more than that evolution in matter and life has ceased. 
Emerson says, “Man is a stream whose source is hidden.” But 
it is true that we trace him (or think we do) as a physical and 
perhaps a psychic being back to a very insignificant beginning, 
the monad. Here the source is in truth hidden, except that we 
may say that it lies in the Ultimate, and hence is without 
source as truly as is the real Universe. 


8 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


But to forms and states we may ascribe source: to the 
essence we cannot. The necessity for the thought of source 
springs from the limitation of the mind. It is an illusion, just 
as time and space may be said to be. It has been said that “the 
spirit sports with time,”— 

“Can crowd eternity into an hour, 

Or stretch an hour to eternity.” 

This annihilation of the idea of time is referred to in the 
Oriental legend of the experience of the prophet of Islam, who 
it is said was transported into the seventh heaven and had 
ninety thousand conferences with God, and returning found 
that the water had not all spilled from a pitcher that he had 
overturned in his first step upward. 

This power of the mind to sport with time is further illus¬ 
trated in the story of an infidel Sultan of Egypt, who expressed 
to a Mohammedan doctor a doubt as to the possibility of this 
alleged experience. The learned man said he would prove to 
him its possibility. A tub of water was brought, and while the 
prince and his courtiers stood before him he bade the Sultan 
plunge his head into the water and withdraw it. The Sultan 
complied, and at once found himself alone on a barren plane at 
the foot of a mountain. His first impulse was to rave at this 
act of supposed treachery; but, perceiving that this availed 
nothing, he submitted to the situation and sought some habita¬ 
ble abode. Finally he discovered some persons cutting in a 
forest and joined in their occupation. After a time he came to 
a town, and having had many adventures finally married a 
wealthy woman to whom were born seven sons and seven 
daughters by him. He was afterward unfortunate and re¬ 
duced to poverty, and was compelled to ply as a porter in the 
streets. One day, while walking alone on the seashore bewail¬ 
ing his fate, a fit of devotion seized him, and, throwing off his 
clothing to bathe (agreeable to his Mohammedan custom be¬ 
fore praying), he had no sooner plunged into the sea and raised 
his head above water than he found himself standing by the 
side of the tub with the learned doctor and the courtiers around 


Some Basic Philosophy. 


9 


him.* He found that his long series of imaginary adventures 
had occupied but a moment, and was only a psychological effect. 

One does not need to vouch for the story to understand the 
explanation of such an experience, having our present knowl¬ 
edge of hypnotic suggestion. I give it only to illustrate that 
the experience of men everywhere has been that time is an idea 
arising from sequence only. Persons have similar experiences 
in the dream-state. We grow weary and aged in spirit because 
we are too much under this illusion of time, and live in a 
changeful consciousness—by days and years, and by counting 
trifling events and measuring out our existence by a transitory 
scale; whereas we might remain eternally young in spirit by 
living more in the thoughts that never change, that are not 
superseded by others, as universal love and perfection, thereby 
measuring our consciousness upon a lasting scale. 

As the past of man is held in the past of the Universe, and 
as the present phenomenal universe has been the result of evo¬ 
lution, it would be the natural thing to expect that man also is 
an evolution. And so we find him to be. All we know of him 
scientifically is of a being standing at the summit of evolved 
life. His self-consciousness has slowly evolved from baser 
and more limited states, and at present is mostly engaged with 
material environment, which conditioned his personality. He 
is habitually conscious of the external, of the other thing rather 
than the self, realizing the latter only by reflection and the 
experiencing of pleasure and pain. Being habitually conscious 
of environment, whose imperious demands draw out the soul’s 
attention and hold it tenaciously, he has established a firm, con¬ 
scious relationship with it, until he believes it to be the only, 
reality. Other concepts,'being mostly ideations and deductions ' 
from and groupings of these, are as unreal as those on which [ 
they are based. 

Such states of consciousness are conditioned by matter and 
by phenomena; hence, they are impermanent, changing, and 
evanescent. With the passing of the phenomena the conscious 
* Godwin’s Lives of Necromancers. 


io The Esoteric Art of Living. 

state is gone; it survives only in memory, which in time fades 
away. These states are constantly supplanted by new ones; 
but they are ever a consciousness of environment and concepts 
built upon it. Thus he evolves for himself a conscious status 
that becomes his personality; but it is not his real self. Exclud¬ 
ing from it the impulses and intuitions of the subliminal con¬ 
sciousness, it is as evanescent and transitory as that on which it 
is built. The subliminal phase of the true self, the sublime soul, 
potentially divine, is in truth behind it, seeking an expression, 
ever dissatisfied with the present result, always prompting to 
a higher ideal, and suggesting greater possibilities and a 
shorter and surer way to perfection and liberation. Says 
Emerson: “We grant that human life is mean; but how did 
we find out that it was mean? What is the ground of this 
uneasiness of ours—of this old discontent? What is the uni¬ 
versal sense of want and ignorance, but the fine innuendo by 
which the soul makes its enormous claim ?” 

This evolution of consciousness, of which we have spoken, 
while it does not at once reveal the true self in its higher states, 
is nevertheless necessary. It has not reached the extent of its 
possibilities. It will continue until it brings into knowledge 
the subtler states of matter upon this and other planes of exist¬ 
ence ; for we are as intimately connected with all. At present 
a knowledge of consciousness of only the grossly physical plane 
is all that most persons have, and the majority pride themselves 
upon this .limitation. But further evolution and unfoldment 
will bring into the individual consciousness other and more 
subtle states now unthought of by them. The blind man that 
would declare he can see no advantage in having eyes would 
present an analogous spectacle to those who endeavor to per¬ 
suade themselves that they have all the faculties that could 
conduce to their advancement, knowledge, or happiness. 

Parallel with this process of sense evolution there has been 
another evolution—of a higher consciousness, of states not 
dependent upon environment and not necessarily springing 
from it. It has been largely subordinated thus far; but if 


Some Basic Philosophy. n 

progress be made and the goal be reached it must be accorded 
greater attention, if not made the controlling factor in life. 
This may be termed the consciousness of the spiritual attri¬ 
butes. What is the spiritual in this sense? The difficulty of 
attempting a definition must be at once recognized, for it lies 
above the sense consciousness and the concepts based upon it, 
and still above the psychic, and must be related to the unchang¬ 
ing aspect of the Universe. We may say what it is not, and 
then relate it by necessity to the undefinable, but not, as Her¬ 
bert Spencer would say, to the “unknowable”; for by reason 
of the soul’s nature it may know. We may say that all things 
spiritual must be unchangeable and eternal; hence, the spiritual 
consciousness as distinguished from the other classes must be 
that which bears a direct relationship to the unchanging es¬ 
sence, or the attributes which in a sense may be said to belong 
to it. 

Bear in mind always that man cannot isolate himself from 
the essential nature of the Universe, and it necessarily follows 
that he must relate himself to some of its aspects. What ones 
shall they be ? Shall it be more largely to the unchanging, and 
thereby evolve an undying consciousness; or shall it be altogeth¬ 
er to the evanescent, and thus remain an ever-changing, ever- 
dying, and unhappy consciousness? Choose either path and 
the result will be the equivalent of the life. It is the living that 
will ultimately make us the one or the other. No amount of 
confidence, or belief, or acceptance of a philosophy or creed, 
will of itself act as a magic wand to transform our present or 
future or to obliterate the past. As we find it true that in the 
past there have been no mighty leaps along the path of at¬ 
tainment, so will there be none in the future. There are no 
sudden and radical transformations. All we will experience 
will be a result of the past and the present and that which 
arises from our creative power; and our future will be only 
that which we have earned, modified by the power to create 
new conditions. Life is no gift enterprise. 


CHAPTER II. 


Mental States and Selected Consciousness. 


Having briefly considered the philosophy of unfoldment 
along the higher paths of being, we may next consider some 
of the right mental states that make such an unfoldment possi¬ 
ble. It must be understood not only that the mental life is 
an expression of the ego, but that the further expression is 
greatly aided or hindered by past and present mental states. 

But first it may be asked, Why all this philosophy? Be¬ 
cause the living that is not conformable to some philosophy, 
some reason, some purpose, is only drifting on the tide of time: 
it is living by expediency, the reason of the moment sufficing 
to determine the acts and thoughts. It may be conceded that 
there is spontaneous and unreasoning excellence, which no 
doubt is a very high state; but we may be assured that, when 
we find it, it is a result that has been earned somewhere and 
some time. 

The fact is not to be overlooked that the living is essential 
and not to be avoided. Unfoldment of the higher nature must 
come through an expression of it, which is only possible 
through the life—the thought. We must not make the mistake 
that achievement lies in shutting one’s self up and lapsing into 
general indifference, nor imagine that we have become so 
superior that the character of our achievement will not be modi¬ 
fied by our every act. Each act has thought behind it, and if 
the act be ignoble or harmful there is either a like thought 
correlated or an absence of the better and higher thought. In 
either case the ego stultifies itself. 

To live the higher life is not an impracticable or chimerical 


Mental States and Selected Consciousness. 


13 


undertaking. It is natural and practical in the highest sense, 
but not in the sense of being altogether best suited to all condi¬ 
tions; for it cannot harmonize with conditions that are the 
result of low ideals. It has been said that “art is the path of 
the creator to his work.” In this case the creator is man; his 
work is living; and the method and manner of this living are 
the art. 

The living, then, must be such a conduct of the daily life 
as is most conformable to the principles of universal and un¬ 
selfish love and the manifestation of truth in every phase; the 
making of the life beautiful within, which will always insure 
its loveliness without; the masterful conquest of the lower 
nature, and the willing renunciation of the trifling and un¬ 
necessary habits and likes and dislikes that hold the soul in 
bondage to a lower and an imperfect state; the love of the true 
and the perfect, and the studious avoidance of the untrue and 
the imperfect; the attainment of some degree of mastery 
whereby come contentment, peace, and happiness. I do not 
now refer to possible higher states of consciousness. 

Is this too much to hope for? It must come some time. 
Man must become a conscious creator. He must realize that 
his powers for good or ill are far-reaching; that whatever 
else others may do or be, his conscious universe will be made 
for and by himself. He must learn something of the potential 
powers of his soul—what natural means he is using daily to 
weave the web of life around him, and how they may be so 
used as to lift him into a higher condition instead of fettering 
him. Hence, the key of the life and the art of living are ex¬ 
pressed in the words Mastery and Attainment. 

Let us examine them more in detail. Assuming that there 
is an agreement to the foregoing philosophy, or some other 
that recognizes soul and its destiny of perfection, the first con¬ 
sideration will be of Freedom. The soul is in bondage—in 
a thousand particulars it is a bond-slave: bound by birth, by 
the age in which it lives, by the conventional opinions of other 
human beings, by inherited dogma and philosophy, by its own 


14 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


errors of speculation, by its belief in the supremacy of the body, 
by the weakness of character it has brought with it, and by 
fear and ignorance. To be free from all these.would, it may 
be thought, make a perfect being. Its condition would be only 
a negative one, however, and would lack the positive element 
of good. It may be asked, Can we free ourselves from all 
these? Yes; but not in a day, though great progress may be 
made in a given time—if one have the wish and the will. The 
soul must be free to be in a condition to receive and apprehend 
the truth. An angel may stand at your door, but, if you are 
sure that nothing will convince you that there is such a being, 
his visit will be useless. 

The soul can never be receptive of truth so long as it is 
clouded by prejudice, opinion, and irrevocable predilection. 
If a gleam of truth occasionally percolate that condition, it is 
sure to become distorted and unrecognizable. Take as sim¬ 
ple an example as that which arises from Nature. Emerson 
says: “The pairing of birds is an idyl, not tedious as our idyls 
are; a tempest is a rough ode, without falsehood or rant; a 
summer with its harvest sown, reaped, and stored is an epic 
song, subordinating how many admirably executed parts. 
Why should not the symmetry and truth that modulate these 
glide into our spirits, and we participate in the invention of 
Nature?” And yet how very few have sufficiently divested 
themselves of conventional thinking to be able to receive such 
suggestions from Nature! 

One must free himself also from the tyranny of approba- 
tiveness. This, like most other forms of bondage, is self-im¬ 
posed. As long as we permit the opinions of others to deter¬ 
mine our action and thought, we can never be free. We will 
have set up public or private opinion as the standard of conduct, 
rather than the right and the truth. Act rightly, and give no 
thought to opinion. The love of praise and commendation is 
ignoble; it holds the soul in bondage. The fear of disapproval 
is even more tyrannous. Break them both, and to that extent 
be free 


Mental States and Selected Consciousness . 15 

One of the results of freedom is original thought. It 
knows no limitations; it recognizes no obstacles. With a dis¬ 
regard that appals the weak and circumscribed, it complacently 
passes by and beyond for the moment the opinions and theo¬ 
ries of others and seeks the truth itself. It raises without 
hesitation the veil from every Isis. It enters the sanctuary, 
and generally finds an idol instead of the Truth. It descends 
to the atom and reaches out to the stars. It is fearless; it is 
lofty. It is that which relates the ego to all things, as the sun’s 
rays proceed outward and embrace illimitable space. It broad¬ 
ens the horizon of existence, and the soul that has it ceases to 
be merely of a race, or a country, or a world, but becomes a 
being of the Universe. 

The soul must love Truth, and love it above all opinion, 
theory, dogma, doctrine, or philosophy. It must appreciate 
the fact that to know the Truth and live it is the highest state, 
and be willing to abandon every theory for it. Some who 
think they love the Truth are mistaken; they love their 
opinion of Truth. They are not free. The Truth of which 
I speak is not taught; it is not found in books. Only the 
method of knowing it may be thus imparted. It itself is 
internally perceived by him who fits himself to perceive it. It 
is an interpretation, or a self-revelation, of the Divine. 

The soul must love the pure, and be pure. “The sublime 
vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste 
body,” said Emerson. The intellectual life must be kept clean 
and beautiful, the thought ever free from distortion, and then 
the consciousness will be so likewise. Ruskin wrote: “You 
can no more filter your mind into purity than you can com¬ 
press it into calmness; you must keep it pure if you would 
have it pure, and throw no stones into it if you would have it 
quiet.” So far as our own higher evolution is concerned, we 
should ever bear in mind the teaching of the Japanese Bud¬ 
dhists—that we should “neither hear nor speak nor see evil.” 
No one who allows his mind to dwell upon the details 
of crime, or upon the many phases of moral obliquity, can keep 


16 The Esoteric Art of 'Living . 

his mind pure. In the use of the term pure I do not simply 
refer to the absence of obliquity: I use the term as compre¬ 
hending the whole realm of the perfect. Whatever is perfect 
is pure; whatever is a deviation from the perfect is impure. 

We must, then, recognize and make part of our lives only 
those things that approximate perfection, and disregard and 
refuse to take into our lives all that is a deviation from the 
purpose of perfection. This should be applied to conversation, 
literature, art, and the commonest thoughts of life; and, if 
studiously followed, will transform the habitual consciousness 
into one beautiful harmony in unison with the higher expres¬ 
sion of soul-life on our plane, rendering the life sweet and 
fresh and free from monstrosities of thought. 

What I have said is not to be taken to mean that we should 
be uncharitable and harsh in opinion—not that we shall disre¬ 
gard duties that deal with imperfect conditions—but applies 
to the realm of thought and action that lies within the free 
choice and is purely an individual condition. 

It is not the highest philosophy that holds that we must 
learn virtue by studying vice: that we can appreciate sunshine 
only by passing through the night. If that were true the 
divinest nature would have to steep itself in vice in order to 
appreciate its own divinity. The philosophy I hold is a positive 
one, and teaches men to love the thing for itself—not a nega¬ 
tive one, which teaches you by contrast. There is no real 
virtue in a preference formed by reason of a contrast. To be 
good in order to escape the result of evil is not to be good in 
a very high sense. Such will do for primitive men, who 
must have rewards to bribe and punishments to deter them. 
But to be good because of the good itself—that is virtue. 

The next consideration is that of Being, as distinguished 
from seeming. The thought too often is, How may I seem to 
my acquaintances and the world in general? More stress is 
put upon reputation than upon character. Reputation is 
merely the aspect in which we appear to others; it may be true 
or it may be false, but in any event it is nothing in itself. It is 


Mental States and Selected Consciousness. 


17 


a shadow at best. Character is the real man—reputation only 
the seeming. Men will be content to know that they are in fact 
ignoble, if only they seem to be otherwise to the world. The 
personal man is valued higher than the real man, and virtue is 
not esteemed for itself but for some extraneous reward. They 
should be content to know that they are noble, and unmindful 
of what they may seem to be. Emerson says: “Virtue is the 
adherence in action to the nature of things, and the nature of 
things makes it prevalent. It consists in a perpetual substitu¬ 
tion of being for seeming, and with sublime propriety God is 
described as saying I AM.” The soul can never appreciate 
Truth until it rises out of this illusion, this preference for the 
seeming over the being. 

Ambition and the love of fame are to be classed here. All 
have them more or less, but they are not recognized on account 
of their insignificant aspects—because perchance they do not 
take the form of Napoleon’s passion. They are the petty 
rivalries and vanities for social and other place and position. 
Of the more pronounced phases we may say, with Juvenal, “Go 
climb the Alps, and be a theme for schoolboys.” It is sufficient 
comment: the words speak volumes. There is no real great¬ 
ness or nobleness in such lives. Men think they love greatness 
and burn to do some noble deed: but they mistake; it is not 
greatness or nobleness they love, but themselves. They love 
the acclaim of the multitude. Greatness and nobleness are as 
great and noble in the obscurity of an unknown life as in the 
full glare of the world’s eye. 

One of the most conspicuous examples of this false view 
is to be found in Cicero’s essay on fame: “Why should we dis¬ 
semble what is impossible for us to conceal ? Why should we 
not be proud of confessing candidly that we all aspire to fame? 
The love of praise influences all mankind, and the greatest 
minds are most susceptible to it.” To this we may reply, 
briefly, in the words of Epictetus: “Is there no reward ? Do 
you seek a reward greater than doing what is good and just? 


18 The Esoteric Art of Living. 

Does it seem to you so worthless a thing to be good and 
happy ?” 

Again, we must be self-centered. This does not mean self¬ 
ishness. It means that we must recognize the power of self, 
and its legitimate field of independent and originative action; 
that our work which shall be effective for self and others must 
be projected from a self-consciousness of power; and that all 
true advancement must come from an unfolding of the life 
within—not through an expectation of a transforming power 
from without. Matthew Arnold finds a similitude to this in 
the sublime self-sufficiency of the heavenly bodies, where he 
says: 

“Unaffrighted by the silence round them, 

Undistracted by the sights they see, 

These demand not that the things without them 
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy,” 

—and points to the mighty life they attain by pouring their 
powers into their own tasks. 

The analogy may be faulty, and we may prefer the words 
of Epictetus, if in truth we feel the need of going to another 
for the expression of a thought: “What, then, is that which is 
able to conduct a man ? One thing, and only one—philosophy. 
But this consists in keeping the spirit within free from violence 
and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing 
without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, nor feel¬ 
ing the need of another man’s doing or not doing anything, 
and besides accepting all that happens and all that is allotted as 
coming from thence, wherever it is, whence he himself came.” 
Interpreting this last clause as intended to include and recog¬ 
nize the laws of causation upon all planes of experience, we 
may say this is good philosophy. 

Let us consider briefly universal love—that condition which 
holds within itself the possibility of every virtue. As a rule, it 
is weakly perceived and faintly felt by the soul of average unfold- 
ment—so dominated by personal and selfish love that the very 
existence and possibility of this condition are often denied. 
Nevertheless, it is the golden cord that unites all humanity in a 


Mental States and Selected Consciousness . 19 

thought of ultimate unity; it is the state of consciousness that 
widens beyond family, friends, country, and race, and claims 
a kindred with not only all humanity but all life. It softens 
contrasts; it levels differences in favor of the higher principles 
that inhere in all. It varies in degree in different personalities, 
but it may always be known by the absence from the concept 
of the thought of requital. It goes forth as freely as the sun¬ 
shine, and has no more thought than it of a reward or requital. 
It never asks a return of love for love: it is free from any 
idea of self. It gives itself wholly, an unqualified gift, and 
exists for naught else. It never diminishes love, but broadens 
the field of its application. It never withdraws affection when 
bestowed by reason of personal relations, but lifts it to a higher 
plane of thought and experience and makes it but a part in an 
infinite sea of love. The soul must grow into this state. It 
can do so only by the exercise of it. 

In conclusion of this branch of our subject, let us give but 
a moment to the consideration of that without which one finds 
himself largely powerless, although he may believe he has at¬ 
tained much of what I have spoken. I refer to the Conserva¬ 
tion of Psychic Energy. 

^ As imperfect as is the bodily life rendered by ill health, so 
is all the higher life made largely ineffective by a failure to 
conserve the psychic energy. This is thrown away in a multi¬ 
tude of ways: by anger and irritation, by envy and jealousy, 
by worry, by useless anxiety and grief, by melancholy and 
pessimism, by useless and inane talking,.by inordinate emotion, 
by useless acts and movements, by incontinence and a disregard 
of the laws of the creative function. If one would know the 
higher states of consciousness he must give assiduous attention 
to all these things. If he would feel the consciousness of a 
greater power within himself, and wish to know what richness 
of thought, aspiration, and realization it adds to life, he must 
in some measure master these defects and at once raise himself 
into another and newer classification of man. 



CHAPTER III. 


Eliminative and Constructive Mentation. 


Professor Marsh pointed out a most interesting fact in 
evolution. It is well known that the gigantic animal structures 
of the geological ages disappeared from the earth and have 
been succeeded by smaller organisms. It seems to be true that 
in such changes the brain of the succeeding type has ever been 
larger in comparison with the organism than that of the type 
displaced. And if we remember that more brain means a 
greater and more complex functioning of mind, we may draw 
a most important conclusion, namely, that in the evolution 
of life there has been a survival of the fittest mind. 

But our inquiry here leads us far beyond this conclusion. 
We find that the manifestation of mind alone most fitted to 
overrun the earth is not that manifestation of mind which 
has been prominent in the-best thought and life of man of his¬ 
toric times. This has been a development of mind that natural 
selection acting through physical environment would hardly 
account for; that is, the evolution of morality, ethics, altruism, 
and esthetics. Thus we see that evolution must now follow 
the lines of higher mental states. 

In the preceding paper there was a consideration of some 
mental states that constitute or induce the higher life. The 
question arises, Is there any method or art by which these may 
be attained; and if so, what? There is; and it is the mastery 
of the mind, and through it of the conditions and states of 
consciousness related to the objective life and impressed upon 
the subliminal states. 




Eliminative and Constructive Mentation. 


21 


Mind has been said to be “the totality of the subconscious 
and conscious adaptive functions of the organism in interac¬ 
tion with the cosmos.”* I would say it is the relation in 
entirety between the consciousness and the cosmos. We there¬ 
fore see the reason for such proverbs as that of the Hindus: 
“The mind binds us and the mind sets us free.” 

To master the mind is to master the relations with the 
cosmic environment. It is to select at will the character of 
the soul’s functioning and thereby become the creator of the 
bodily conditions on the one hand and the states of conscious¬ 
ness on the other. It is to become a powerful psychic factor 
for good. It is to gain control over the only instrument by 
which the personality may be purged of the dross that prevents 
progress and a realization of higher states in this body and 
hereafter. 

“We must be careful how we choose our thoughts; the 
soul is dyed by its thoughts.” The mind is the spring of 
every conscious action, and it is the creator of the special 
aspect that the world wears to each individual soul. Says 
Emerson: “You have seen a skilful man read Virgil. Well, 
that author is a thousand books to a thousand persons. Take 
the book into your two hands and read your eyes out: you will 
never find what I find.” So does each soul live in a condition 
made by itself, and everything upon this plane is interpreted 
by the mind for itself. “We may make the world a palace or 
a prison,” says Sir John Lubbock. By the power of conscious 
creative mentation we may create a higher and purer world 
of thought into which we may retire at will, and into which 
no unlike or inharmonious elements can enter. We may be 
cheerful in the "midst of adversity, and render ourselves happy 
in the possession of that which change and opinion cannot 
touch. 

This mastery does not come by haphazard thinking, nor by 
spasmodic effort, but by systematic mentation and purposeful 
* Professor Elmer Gates. 


22 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


concentration. As far as the purposes here are concerned, it 
may be said that this concentration must be upon the concepts 
connected with the higher life. It is constructive in that it 
creates higher states and intensifies higher aspirations, and it 
is eliminative in that it displaces lower and antagonistic ones. 
It fixes the desirable states as habitual ones by building up 
brain-cells through which the conscious functioning takes place, 
and upon the psychic side it habituates the soul to those higher 
conditions by the law of exercise and use. It leads to original 
thinking, and gives a stronger and truer mental grasp. When 
sufficient mastery is attained to inhibit all habitual lines of 
thought, the subliminal mentation becomes vivid and states 
not theretofore known become apparent. 

The practise divides itself naturally into two branches— 
one the constructive and eliminating, by which new states may 
be purposefully created, and the other the revealing, by which the 
soul manifests its latent higher states. The rationale of these 
will be spoken of particularly in a future paper. For our present 
purpose we may ask what is the first requisite to successful intro¬ 
spection, aside from the preparation shadowed forth in fore¬ 
going pages. There must be some degree of temporary retire¬ 
ment or withdrawal from distracting environment. This is 
an obstacle to very many who have not accustomed themselves 
to look within, but who seek all their entertainment and diver¬ 
sion from without. Says Sir Thomas Browne: “ Unth inking 
heads who have not learnt to be alone ar e a prisorj to them- 
selves if they be not with others.” The advantages of solitude 
have been universally recognized, and many times unduly mag¬ 
nified. There are conspicuous examples of both. Petrarch 
retired from the allurements and fascinations of a luxurious 
court, where every material advantage was at his bidding, in 
order to be with himself and higher thoughts. 

But to attain the result of which I speak it is not necessary 
to retire into seclusion. The healthful practise requires only 
a regular effort each day for the training of the soul’s facul- 





Eliminative and Constructive Mentation. 


23 


ties by a rational system of thought and meditation. At first 
the student finds himself ran away with by his desultory, capri¬ 
cious thoughts. He realizes that he is not master in his own 
mental house. Gradually he begins to gain control; and, by 
the inhibition of special lines of thought and the concentration 
upon others that are desirable, he may engage in conscious, 
systematic character-building. He knows that he has the key 
to attainment, and the future to a vastly increased extent lies 
within his conscious control. No doubt most prefer to say: 

“Keep Thou my feet. I do not ask to see 
The distant scene: one step enough for me;” 

—yet they must admit that they are not mere automata, and 
that it is the part of divinity to know and to become. 

The details of the art of meditation and concentration are 
many, and cannot be entered upon here. But even a slight 
practise of controlling mentation—of the systematic inhibition 
of harmful thoughts and the holding of beneficial ones—will 
bring ample reward for the effort; and those who wish to go 
beyond will find the way. It is well, however, to state here 
a fundamental rule that will be of benefit at any stage of prac¬ 
tise, and one absolutely necessary to observe in the effort to 
eradicate existing undesirable thought or character. It is a 
simple one, but must be strictly followed. It is this—that a 
state of consciousness or a thought cannot be overcome by 
fighting it. When you only contest it, you intensify it because 
you hold it in consciousness—the very thing you wish to avoid. 
You must replace it by another thought of a different and 
perhaps opposite character, recurring again and again to it 
until it becomes dominant. 

But it must always be remembered that these stages of 
concentration are but the instruments by which you may master. 
The mastery must be of the right character; the life must be 
true, and the aspiration high. If, for instance, one be grossly 
prejudiced or far from free, the probability is that his con¬ 
centration (unless done under the immediate direction of one 


24 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


more competent) might tend to emphasize his errors. In 
short, all is accessory to the life. 

While I speak of mastery and the building of character 
and the attainment of higher states of consciousness, I do not 
thereby depreciate the beauty and value of unostentatious liv¬ 
ing: in truth, I hold it to be the best preparation for higher 
attainment. Emerson says of the poet: “His cheerfulness 
should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for 
his inspiration, and he should be tipsy on water.” This sim¬ 
plicity and spontaneity should mark the life of all. 

Nor do I desire to import into life the austerities of asceti¬ 
cism. Along the lines of advancement I would have the soul 
express its keenest appreciation of the lofty, the beautiful, and 
the true. This expression naturally seeks a formulation in mu¬ 
sic, art, symmetry, and proportion and harmony in all rela¬ 
tions. I would encourage original thinking and expression 
rather than imitation, and the spontaneous rather than the 
labored and artificial; yet they all have their uses. I would 
have him who has a poet’s instinct write or sing his own 
thoughts, however crude they might be, and he whose soul 
is tuned to harmony to compose and give forth his own con¬ 
ceptions. I would have all men thus look within themselves, 
and then write or sing or act accordingly, for the love simply 
of being what they express, and with no idea of merchandizing 
their talents, or of vanity, or of fame or applause; for then 
the virtue of the life actuated by the latter withers as the 
Dead-Sea fruit turns to ashes on the lip. 

I would have men cease to regard living as an evil out of 
which they propose to extract the greatest amount of what 
is usually called pleasure, or as a patrimony to be lightly valued 
and spent. They should realize that life is a great privilege, 
the value of which is to be realized in the now of every soul. 
The past lives only in the present; the future is yet unborn, 
but must come out of the present. We must realize the truth 
of the poet’s words: 


Eliminative and Constructive Mentation . 


25 


“Would you be happy? Hearken, then, the way. 

Heed not to-morrow; heed not yesterday: 

The magic words of life are Here and Now;” 

—and regard them as expressing the philosophy of living most 
truly in each moment, but in no wise as a limitation upon 
attainment. 

I have used the word esoteric, not to imply that the methods 
mentioned are necessarily confined to the few, but that the 
science of the mind’s power and the art of using it for the en¬ 
nobling of life are little known and appreciated; that the fact 
that man is an unconscious creator and may become a conscious 
creator for himself is not generally regarded; that the com¬ 
monest aspects of life have a deeper meaning than we think; 
that the familiar proverbs, which like unlaid ghosts haunt the 
intellectual life, are alive with significance; and that the con¬ 
sensus of philosophic thought is founded in profound truth. 

We are only upon the threshold of true living. Let us 
learn these higher laws of Being, and, knowing them, so live 
that we may become more beautiful within and evolve a higher 
state of consciousness—thus uniting our immediate destinies 
with sublimer spheres of Being both here and in the next state, 


CHAPTER IV. 


Original Thought and Free Expression. 


Man stands between two powers—Authority and Free¬ 
dom. To the first he may subject his mind; to the second 
he may ally himself. The one seeks to enforce its ancient lien 
upon the soul, to foreclose the mortgage of ancestral making, 
to exact from new life a homage to the old, to compel the 
present to conform to the past, and jealously to guard that 
the future shall bring forth no new thought. The other is 
like a breath of sweet air in spring-time, exacting nothing, 
but laying all things in glorious gift before the soul. In its 
presence there is .the suggestion of a new life. It invites the 
soul to think for itself, to live outwardly the inward conviction, 
and to aspire and build regardless of the failures or successes 
of the past. 

The limitation upon the liberty of the soul, which Authority 
seeks to enforce, is the result of countless ages of life-history. 
Thousands of generations have added their moieties to the 
whole, and the burden has increased as the stream of life has 
flowed onward. It speaks to the soul through every relation 
of life—the institutions of State and the creeds of Church, 
the common customs of nations and the mandates of the law, 
and the recognized standards, of art and literature, morality 
and ethics. It strikes .with paralysis the spontaneous and 
original thought.' 

The child is born an heir to the ages, and the greater part 
of the inheritance into which it speedily comes is this bondage 
to Authority. The cradle is environed by its hard and un- 




Original Thought and Free Expression. 


27 


yielding dictum. It displays its diploma of experience, and 
with assumed wisdom undertakes the rearing and education 
of the child. To every original, spontaneous, and progress¬ 
ive question from the unfolding mind, it offers the opinion of 
the past, though formed in ignorance or selfishness. In the 
early years of youth, when perchance one wanders in the deep 
and silent woodlands, or is fortunate enough to know the 
trackless prairie whose expanding circle with unbroken dome 
above engenders concepts of unity and sublimity unthought 
before, and through this touch of Nature perceives the law 
of free life and expression, then for the time being this ancient 
phantom of Authority fades away as something belonging to 
an artificial world of transient things, and is replaced by the 
genius of light—the spirit of Freedom. For the soul, the past 
is then dead, and its gaze is turned to the future, which it 
claims to work with in its own divine way. 

In such conditions have been born many great thoughts 
and purposes that have swept the race onward to higher levels 
of attainment. But such conditions do not come to all, and if 
to the few are of short duration. The soul is soon forced 
back into the beaten path of life, and to some extent must fol¬ 
low it. Conventional life and conditions claim him, and he 
enters an existence whose controlling factor is Authority. 
Would he fashion his life upon a higher social order of things 
than that which surrounds him, and with which his fellow- 
beings are content? He cannot; Authority in a multitude 
of disguises opposes his way and threatens to brand him with 
all sorts of disagreeable epithets if he persist. Would he 
evolve a higher religious conception than the average possess 
and manifest in life? He is anticipated; for Authority, know¬ 
ing its strong point to lie in forestalling, has molded his 
plastic young mind after one of the prevailing philosophies 
or creeds, and if in time the evil be recognized the effort to 
gain the vantage-ground of fairness and unbias may be an 
uncertain one in its results. In business, in politics, and all 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


28 

the vocations that depend upon the multitude for favor, the 
soul must yield to the tyranny of the special embodiment of 
Authority which the multitude has set above it to rule its 
thoughts and define its limitations. 

Thus does this psychological tyrant, whom the human race 
has created, dog the steps of every soul, exacting his tribute 
at every stage of life, lavishing material benefits upon his 
willing subjects and withholding them from the defiant ones, 
and does not yield up his office until what men call death 
claims the victim, and even then imposes conditions upon the 
disposition of the body. Under these conditions is it strange 
that people fear to harken to their own thought upon the 
problems of soul life, and seek to press them into the back¬ 
ground, where they will cease to annoy or surprise them; or 
that they should wish first to have displayed the authoritative 
label of your philosophy before they consent to listen, and, if 
not able to classify your idea in some highly respectable and 
authoritative category, reject it as dangerous and visionary; 
or that they are timid and indolent in thought, scarcely claim¬ 
ing the right to think for themselves, deferring always to tra¬ 
ditional opinion and that of their appointed masters and 
leaders ? 

What is more usual than the popular demand of “What is 
your authority?” or “Who says so?” as the first rejoinder to 
a new or an old thought which they are compelled to enter¬ 
tain, as if it could be more or less true on account of him who 
asserts it ? Proclaim a profound truth, one as deep as human 
nature but without the stamp of Authority or the must of age 
upon it, and the average mind is little more than entertained 
or the heart little stirred. But declare a less deep or vital 
truth in the name of some one whose reputation is revered, and 
allegiance is gained at once. This is the mystic charm of 
Authority and its blighting influence upon the original, pro¬ 
gressive, and creative powers of the mind. 

An attempt to build from without, and not from within, is 


Original Thought and Free Expression. 


29 


a false philosophy. It is a dependence upon another’s mind, 
another’s excellence, another l s goodness or wisdom, rather 
than upon one’s own. It is the mental and moral sloth from 
which nothing can deliver one but the exchange of this master 
of Authority for the companionship of the genius of Free¬ 
dom and the power that will thereby come to attain for 
ourself. 

If the one universal essence pervades all beings—if each 
be the temple of divinity through which the higher, subliminal 
consciousness is ever seeking to emerge—why should I in¬ 
quire of Plato or Emerson what truth or virtue is? If they 
be nearer to it than I, is not that approach a result of their 
own self-evolution, to attain like which I too must follow the 
same road? No one can have a monopoly upon that which 
is the nature of all. 

You may ask, Is there not a difference in the wisdom of 
men? Yes, surely; but that difference is not fundamental 
and create: it is a difference in unfoldment, or evolution, and 
the consequent apprehension of truth. 

Did these men acquire their wisdom by collecting the 
opinions of others? Surely not. No doubt they were familiar 
with the thought of preceding souls, but they attained wisdom 
through self-evolution, by the process of unfolding that higher, 
subliminal consciousness which holds in potentiality all that 
man can ever become. 

Here we may well ask, What truly great man who has had 
a message for humanity ever sought to quote some one else 
for what he declared to be his conviction of the truth or his 
conception of life? I think we may say, No one. Did Jesus 
quote some respectable Authority for his teachings? “Verily, 
I say unto you,” is his reputed language. Did Socrates quote 
the philosophers or oracles? “Plato, it must be so,” would 
be his words. Did Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius couch their 
teachings in the language and with the sanction of the then 
great schools of philosophy? Did Emerson or Shakespeare 


30 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


deliver his profound messages in the language of another, or 
borrow his luster to give them currency? No; because they 
spoke from the conviction of their own souls, and not from 
the dictum of another. 

There can be no real progress or unfoldment except the 
evolution of the self. Another can give advice, good counsel, 
information; can teach facts, but never truth, nor wisdom, nor 
experience. These are matters of self-attainment. They 
cannot be borrowed or loaned or transferred. He who pos¬ 
sesses them cannot part with them if he would, neither can he 
monopolize them: they are free to every one, because they are 
of the nature of the one essence of which all are the differen¬ 
tiated parts. 

Any attempt to attain virtue by another’s virtue must fail. 
The internal self-perception of truth must ever be individual, 
though there may be an illimitable nurpber who possess it; 
but the perception by one can never supply the want of it by 
another. Neither can one become wise by the vicarious wis¬ 
dom of another. We cannot build up our lives from without; 
hence, Authority is a false teacher if it stifle growth from 
within. But may we not be taught by others, and share the 
thoughts of the great and enlightened minds who have illum¬ 
ined the way before us? We may. They can show us the 
way and stimulate our endeavor to attain a knowledge of what 
they have known, and, as we attain it, enable us to participate 
in their elevated association. But, when a vital problem is 
presented in the life, the thoughts and theories of others will 
dissolve into nothingness and the question will be solved by 
the self, from the deepest promptings of one’s soul, with as 
much light from the Source of wisdom as has been caught and 
retained in the aspiring ego. One will do this if he appreciate 
his own divinity and the opportunity to express it. Any 
other attempt to settle a vital question wholly by the standards 
of another’s thought or conviction may perchance result hap¬ 
pily occasionally; but as a scheme of life it must ultimately 


Original Thought and Free Expression.- 31 

prove a failure, and involve its hapless victim in a vacillating 
and uncertain state of dependence and unhappiness. 

What, then, should we seek to do? Dismiss the master 
Authority and accept the companion Freedom, which acts upon 
the soul’s powers as the sunlight upon the unfolding flower. 
Live your life from your own standards, arrived at through 
the deepest search into your true self. Have a care not to 
become shallow or one-sided in an artificial exclusiveness, nor 
to become fanatical and egotistical. Keep a true balance with 
the cosmos, especially with the higher thought of your fellow- 
souls. Do not fear that higher thought will trick you. If 
by the effort you fall into occasional error it will be a blessing 
to you thus to discover where in your own personality there is 
something that needs rectifying: for the error will flow from 
that point, not from the nature of your effort. 

Do not be fearful of your own thoughts. First to learn 
yourself, give them perfect liberty and freedom. One of the 
beneficial results will be a partial discovery of yourself. This 
aspect of the self may present two phases. One may dis¬ 
courage, because it will disclose your weaknesses. But do 
not flee; remain to conquer, and let the thought run on and 
show what kind of habit of life is beneath them. By this dis¬ 
closure you will learn where improvement is needed; and, 
once learned, from that point begin the inhibition of harmful 
thought and the building of the higher. The other phase dis¬ 
closed will be the sublimer one before which the intellect may 
stand amazed in the presence of its grandeur and beauty. 

How many people will rhapsodize over a beautiful thought, 
read from an author of reputed standing, but fail to recognize 
the same when it flits through their own minds! Outside of 
science, the narration of empirical facts, what is there new in 
substance in books? Do you not sit down with your favorite 
one and read it as though you yourself had written it ? Why 
is it so, but that you have many times thought the same 
thoughts yourself, and only half-recognized and never fully 


32 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


appreciated them? It may be that your favorite author has 
possessed the art of producing a happy concatenation of words, 
which lends an additional charm to the thoughts; but that is 
largely an artificial adornment. To know somewhat of other 
thoughts is in truth delightful; for it is association, and cheers 
the life. Books, if they be good ones, are excellent mental 
society (some have thought the best, as did Petrarch); but 
neither books nor society become an unqualified good if they 
tend to check or nullify the originative and creative activities 
of the mind. They are liable to be used as one would take 
a stimulant, and as long as one takes a stimulant the natural 
powers of the stimulated organ decrease; and when the stimu¬ 
lant is discontinued the healthful action becomes torpid. 

Once recognizing the duty to think with untrammeled free¬ 
dom, we will have another question to settle. We will be met 
at every step with the suggestion from ourselves or others that 
there cannot be much merit in our thoughts, for others have 
anticipated them. Suppose they have: if the thoughts be 
noble and sublime, we should feel encouraged that we are 
unfolding as did they who went before us and left recorded 
thought. Nor can we be dismayed with the thought that any 
one has a property-right in an idea to our exclusion. No one 
can monopolize ideas; if so, he could suppress soul life alto¬ 
gether, except as an acknowledged imitation. It is the privi¬ 
lege of every soul to express its highest nature. That some 
one has expressed it for himself, before me, is of no import 
to me; it is my privilege and duty to express it for myself. 
Hence, it is untrue to say of my thought, or of yours, that it 
is Emerson’s or Paul’s or Plato’s. It is mine or yours as much 
as it was ever theirs. 

When we admit any such proprietary right in ideas, to our 
own exclusion, we limit the possibility cf unfoldment to that 
extent; for it is primarily through the mind that unfoldment 
in the objective life takes place. Under those circumstances 
we could never enter the field of thought without being a 


Original Thought and Free Expression. 


33 


trespasser—without borrowing from those who have gone be¬ 
fore and acknowledging an eternal and insurmountable in¬ 
debtedness to them; whereas we should enter it as though we 
are passing into our own domain, expecting at every point to 
disclose to ourselves its beauty. This we can do only by per¬ 
fect freedom and a due appreciation of the powers of the soul. 
So long as one feels that there is any subject of knowledge or 
wisdom which he has not the liberty to seek, uncover, and 
question in the sanctuary of his profoundest thought, he has 
failed to realize his opportunity and the right use of his mind. 
He has failed to relate himself to that part of the Universe. 
It is this attitude of perfectly free relation to the Universal 
Mind, without the aid of intermediary devices, that is neces¬ 
sary to a higher mental and spiritual development. 

If, then, we shall hope to make the higher mental life our 
own, we must not relinquish its development to others, but 
must claim it for our own self-attainment. There is a great 
difference, in the store added to the soul, between reading or 
hearing the expression of another’s thought and thinking like 
thoughts for ourselves: all the difference there is between 
borrowing and making a beautiful design or clever device. 
We must think boldly and fearlessly, and be assured that what¬ 
ever wrong can arise from it will be from our own ignorance 
and imperfect manner of proceeding. There is nothing in 
the nature of things designed to be hidden from us. That 
would be imputing to Divinity ways that are ignoble, trivial, 
and childish. If men believe knowledge of a particular kind 
is forbidden them, it will remain for them a closed book. 
They will never pass beyond the circle they draw around 
themselves. 

While with this freedom and faith one opens the mind to 
the flood of thoughts that seek self-expression on subjects of 
soul importance, it must not be forgotten that it is done with 
many imperfections in the evolved personality, which may 
tinge with their own special and erroneous color some of the 


34 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


conclusions. But there is a court of reason and conscience 
where we may detain such conclusions and guard against their 
possible error. 

The reading of many books will not add the richness to 
one’s mind that the attempt to write one poem drawn from 
the deepest and sincerest side of his nature will do. His own 
meditation upon the nature and destiny of his soul will add 
more wisdom than all others can tell him. His own concepts 
of the higher virtues, of the nature of truth, if formed with 
sincere and unselfish purpose, will be surer aids to advance¬ 
ment than the thoughts imperfectly gotten from others. The 
daily recognition of the beauties in sky and stars, in clouds 
and their forms and tints, in landscapes and flowers, in faces 
and souls, will be grander poetry than can be found in books. 

To make the mind, then, the open door into the sublimer 
realm of the intellectual life, to make it the instrument by 
which all the true and noble things shall be self-perceived 
through our own powers and not induced as a vague thought 
from others, is the special duty and privilege that each must 
recognize. Thus, with no other authority but Truth and 
with Wisdom as a counselor, the soul may proceed with its 
work of more perfectly expressing its harmonious relation to 
the Whole and attaining to higher states of consciousness. 


CHAPTER V. 


Self-Revelation. 


In subsequent papers, where will be considered the subject 
of the subliminal consciousness, it will be seen that one of the 
most potent characteristics of the present nature of man is his 
responsiveness to external stimuli: in popular phrase, it has 
been known as susceptibility to suggestion. It has been this 
faculty of responding to the character of environment, together 
with the ability to adjust the self to those demands, that has 
played the main part in his past evolution. 

I wish to note another but a strictly psychological effect 
that this has produced upon man—one as old and universal as 
the race; to show that notwithstanding its age and universal¬ 
ity it rests upon a false interpretation of experience, and finally 
to suggest the true interpretation, a better understanding of 
which, I believe, will greatly assist in the higher thought and 
life. This universal characteristic of responsiveness to the 
external world—this necessity by which the ego is obliged to 
recognize the natures of different external objects and con¬ 
ditions, or perish from the body—has had the effect of impress¬ 
ing upon the consciousness the idea that all external things 
have placed themselves in a distinctively personal attitude to¬ 
ward it; that they are ever making some demands that must 
be met; that they bear a personal import of good or evil; that 
they have some particular message to deliver to the soul. 

It is not surprising that the long ages of struggle to adjust 
the organism to the imperious demands of environment should 
have engendered this state of consciousness and impressed it 



3^ 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


with the idea that the whole of Nature was engaged in a con¬ 
spiracy to help or harm the individual, nor that it should have 
invested all things with a personal aspect. Browning has ex¬ 
pressed it thus: 

. . man, once descried, imprints forever 
His presence on all lifeless things: the winds 
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout— 

A querulous mutter or a quick, gay laugh. 

The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts: 

A secret they assemble to discuss. 

The morn has enterprise: deep quiet droops 
With evening: triumph takes the sunset hour.” 

By reason of this the ancients personified the elements 
and the aspects of Nature, which became deities—beneficent 
in the degree in which they affected favorably the immediate 
comfort and prosperity of the individual. 

It may well be said that from it all there has arisen the 
• thought that there may be an external effort to make a reve¬ 
lation to man. This conception is the result of a misinter¬ 
pretation of experience. As a matter of fact the course of Na¬ 
ture is constant and invariable, but continually expressing its 
own purpose and evolving its own ends; and man as a part 
of it has been ever placing his own interpretation upon its 
phases, and changing that interpretation as a greater degree 
of wisdom dawned upon his mind. Yet there is a revelation; 
but not from without. There is an interpretation; but in con¬ 
formity with truth, as well as error. That revelation and in¬ 
terpretation are the work of man himself, as we may learn. 

All knowledge and all experience are subjective: the ob¬ 
jective channels of sense are but the physical means of register¬ 
ing upon the organism different changes in the condition or 
state of his environment. Thus the eye and the optic nerve 
merely serve to register upon the brain the vibrations of the 
ether, and the consciousness of those vibrations we interpret 
as light. So the ear and nerves serve to register vibrations 
of the atmosphere, and the consciousness of those vibrations 




Self-Revelation. 


37 


we interpret as sound. But this consciousness is wholly a 
subjective state of the ego. We do not see light or hear sound 
as we think we do; but our internal state, or consciousness, is 
changed by reason of the perception of a change in environ¬ 
ment. Thus each ' soul perceives the world through the 
evolved avenues of perception, and interprets the whole of ex¬ 
perience for itself. These interpretations bear an aspect for 
each one that is purely individual. No two see the simplest 
object just the same. Perception reveals a world of changing 
conditions to every one, but the interpretation of that percep¬ 
tion is individual and may be independent of all others; hence, 
no world of one is entirely known to another. This must be 
true because all knowledge is wholly a subjective state of the 
self: it is consciousness within. 

When one listens to the varying tones that result from 
breezes soughing through the pine woods, does he hear dirges ? 
Is he in the presence of melancholy and decay? No; if he 
feels them they are wholly within himself, and not in the for¬ 
est. By association of ideas, and perhaps by a deeper law 
that correlates certain characteristic tones with particular ex¬ 
periences, they awaken the consciousness of such states. The 
inner man is always enacting subjectively the drama of ex¬ 
perience, using the external only as suggestion to fashion it 
upon. Thus may we understand some of the reasons for the 
differences between minds, and the causes for the infinite va¬ 
riety as well as similarity of opinion; why error is so universal 
and so lamentably confused with truth; why, though symbols 
are nothing in themselves, they are useful to some to enable 
them to raise a condition within themselves; and why Nature 
serves as a symbol to suggest to the mind its divine character. 
It is in this sense that the mystic sees there “the Father’s face.” 
The concept of the presence is within him, and the Nature- 
symbol enables him to reveal it to himself. And, as the mystic 
sees his subjective love of the divine thus externalized, the 
lover finds all Nature proclaiming his passion and sharing his 


38 


The Esoteric Art of Living . 


secret—and the guilty sees his wrong frowned upon and con¬ 
demned by sky and tree. 

“Let me not know the change 

O’er Nature thrown by guilt;—the boding sky, 

The hollow leaf-sounds ominous and strange, 

The weight wherewith the dark tree-shadows lie!” 

It is all within the consciousness, and the same landscape 
that serves to show the mystic “the Father’s face” will awe 
the guilty with a sense of ominous condemnation. 

When will we fully realize that we are making the revela¬ 
tions to ourselves in all that we experience, and that the revela¬ 
tion or interpretation may be of the truth, of the divine 
nature of things, in the degree that the soul is free from the dis¬ 
turbing and obscuring thoughts and methods of life? We 
reveal all things to ourselves. There is no other revelation. 
It is a mistaken interpretation of experience to think of it as 
otherwise. No revelation ever comes to man except through 
himself—from the divine nature within him. There is no 
external, overt act needed. All things stand eternally un¬ 
covered, disclosed, declared; and it requires only understand¬ 
ing on the part of man to reveal them to himself. You can 
have facts disclosed to you, but not Truth. If an angel should 
attempt to reveal Wisdom to man, it would be impossible un¬ 
less the man could come in complete rapport with the nature 
of the angel; and if he could do that, no revelation from the 
angel would be necessary, for the man would reveal the same 
state to himself. It would not be a revelation from the angel, 
but a participation by both in the same state. 

This is true not only of the extraordinary, but of the com¬ 
monest experiences of life. What do we find engaging in 
other people but the discovery or expected discovery in them of 
all the good that is latent in ourselves ? Suppose that we knew 
nothing of love ourselves: could we ever understand it in an¬ 
other? If we were totally devoid of the sense of veracity, that 
virtue in others would be an eternal enigma. We continually 


Self-Revelation. 


39 


hold ourselves up—to self inspection, knowledge, and criti¬ 
cism—in the lives and thoughts of others. We carefully 
(whether we know it or not) check off all similarities and note 
dissimilarities—it may be hoped for our betterment always— 
and still seek after the sublime, the unknown, the divine in 
others. We do not find it. Why? Because we have not 
evolved the realization of it—we have not fully known it in 
ourselves. When we do we will interpret or reveal it to our¬ 
selves again in all things. This is why a philosopher has said 
that when’ people learn your limitations they are done with 
you. The truth is they may be done with you because they 
have reached their own limitations, not necessarily yours 
alone. 

Again, take the study of history, which passes from the 
individual to the complex problem. What does the student 
see there but his own nature in the lives and thoughts and acts 
of other men? He reveals himself as a possible history of 
progress or retrogression, of virtue or vice, of attainment or 
decay. All history is a history of every soul, and we may 
learn our position in the race of progress very well by observ¬ 
ing what characteristics in history, or class of individuals or 
acts, as portrayed in history or fiction, most interest us. 

Let it be said here that the harm that comes from reading, 
of whatever character, is this self-revelation, or the awakening 
of tendencies and habit's that as individuals and as a race we 
have outgrown and risen above. So there may be here what 
the naturalists call a “reversion to original type;” and in read¬ 
ing of robber barons, of crime and perfidy, or needlessly re¬ 
viewing the pageant of sensuality and brutality, unless we read 
for the philosophy of history alone we reveal in ourselves, ever 
so faintly it may be, that like nature which, like old and be¬ 
grimed clothes, we have long ago cast away—a relic of a past 
evolutionary stage, which, if we are careful not to revive and 
foster, will gradually lose all power to hold us from the higher 
life. 


40 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


It is the same with literature. Why does one find a world 
with all its people in Shakespeare, while another finds little to 
interest him ? Because the one is accustomed to reveal to him¬ 
self the depths and shoals of human emotion. What does 
Romeo and Juliet mean to one who himself does not love 
humanly; or Macbeth to one who does not recognize the terror 
of pursuing remorse; or Falstaff to one who is not himself 
familiar with the harmless vagabond nature? The page is 
dead and without meaning, but the symbols we call letters and 
words at once summon into our consciousness from ourselves 
a world peopled with thinking and acting beings. One reads 
“The Loves of the Angels” to revel in a sensual imagination; 
another finds in it an expression of something transcendently 
beautiful within himself. One reads Omar Khayyam for his 
agnosticism; another for his philosophy and veiled spiritual¬ 
ism. One admires art for its realism; another for its sym¬ 
bolism of the ideal. 

But most persons fail to reveal to themselves much of the 
divine. They content themselves with the passing phenomena 
of the world—the transient thoughts connected with tem¬ 
porary conditions of things and people. The world thus 
revealed is an unreal and transitory one: it will pass away; 
in fact, while these lines are written it has passed away, and 
another temporary one has come, and in turn has gone as 
soon. Thus they continually die because there is nothing 
worthy of living, nothing really true. Such of the true as is 
revealed, however, lives through every vicissitude, above and 
beyond and independent of every change. It was Ruskin who 
said he was not so much surprised at what men are as at what 
they miss. It is what they fail to reveal to themselves that 
may be surprising. 

The great masterpieces that have been preserved as the 
work of unfolded minds pass on down the ages with but a 
handful of understanding readers, while the multitude pass 
them by. Still, they are handed on; and those who read un- 


Self-Revelation. 


4i 


derstandingly live in the thought, which is ever the same and 
which they reveal to themselves. The intervening ages vanish 
as by magic, and the writer and the reader are one in spirit and 
understanding. 

This self-revelation of the divine finds a great development 
in relation to Nature, because Nature is an open book always 
before us. He that loves the whispering pines, the solemn 
quietness of the forest, the song of waving seas of grass, the 
gladness of day and the pensiveness of night, the grandeur of 
the storm and the beauty of sunset skies, has revealed to him¬ 
self enough of the divine to make his life one long poem and 
joined himself to a mighty throng of like souls. Thus it is 
ever of Truth; no one can reveal it to another. He can put 
him in the way of perceiving it, but the soul must perceive it 
for itself. 

If we will cease to live in trifles, this self-revelation of the 
diviner world will at once make life worth the living. 

You will recall the beautiful lines of James Whitcomb 
Riley, the Hoosier poet: ‘‘There is ever a song somewhere, 
my dear.” It expresses the esoteric side of this idea of reve¬ 
lation, in which all Nature is full of song for us. To express 
the esoteric view, I would add these lines: 

That song, O friend, is the song of love, 

And the words of the song are the thoughts we breathe; 

The tones are life’s grand harmonies 

Between the soul and the life that Nature weaves. 

There’s ever a song somewhere, ’tis true, 

But the song is one we sing ere we hear; 

For my soul is deaf to the song in you 

Till it sings the song in its heart, my dear. 

Then all the world is a songster gay; 

The zephyr’s sigh, the pale star’s ray, 

The joy of birds, the budding flowers, 

The north wind’s plaint through ivied towers, 

The rippling waves—Life’s mighty throng 
All sing to the heart that is full of song. 


42 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


While this self-revelation of the divine is an ever-present 
factor in life, contributing all that makes life truly noble, and, 
like the gathering of many streams to make the river, is con¬ 
tributing to build up a permanent consciousness of a higher 
state, yet there are what may be termed arts whereby the un- 
foldment or revelation may become more certain and forceful. 
All arts, whether of this character or another, are simply modes 
of expression—methods of work; and, whatever glamour of 
mystery may be thrown around them, they are after all only 
a way of living. We will find it so here. 

What, then, should we first do to arrive at a fuller revela¬ 
tion within ourselves? We must seek conformity with the 
perfect state. We must do the conforming: perfection will 
not conform to us. The trouble here is that most persons pay 
little attention to any effort in this direction. They plead in 
extenuation the average life. They live the ordinary life, 
which is neither better nor worse than the average, and, being 
what the world calls the normal life, they are eminently satis¬ 
fied with it. That life is a tissue of continual falsehood from 
day to day. It is permeated with a lack of sincerity and 
honesty in daily intercourse. The mind is habitually en¬ 
gaged with trifles, with unnecessary and harmful thoughts, 
with fashions and gossip, with the office, the club, and the 
latest piece of fiction. As a rule their domination over the 
mind covers over and smothers the possibility of a higher mani¬ 
festation of life. 

By these conventionalities spontaneity and freshness of 
expression are lost. Original thought, except within a nar¬ 
row field, becomes unknown, and men expect to get their men¬ 
tal food second-hand. In this state people fall easy victims to 
fads of every kind. It has been said that “men descend to 
meet.” Is it not very true if they meet upon such a plane? 
The thing to do is to clean out the temple in order that there 
may be a higher consciousness. Cease the waste of thought 
upon the trifling in life and turn the attention devotedly to 


Self-Revelation. 


43 


the highest. The divine in man is forceful and persistent, and 
all it asks is a fair chance. If we cease the trifling thought 
connected with the passing phenomena, and turn the desire 
continually to the higher ideals, then the subliminal nature 
begins to make itself known in the life. 

There are many phases of this self-revelation, from the 
direct perception of truth to genius and the frequent states of 
consciousness that make the life happier and truer. If this 
systematic effort be made to rise out of the transitory life, and 
to live and think in the permanent, then what the mystics 
called recollection and we term meditation will become of 
value to us. But it will be of little use if all the while the mind 
be wedded to the frivolous phase of life. Indeed, meditation 
under such conditions may increase the folly. And one who 
thinks he seeks the higher life and all the while sacrifices his 
best efforts to the world in the sense I have spoken—like the 
lady who never lighted a taper to St. Michael the Archangel 
that she did not also light one to the devil, because she did not 
know which she would have occasion to call upon first—will 
never get a great deal out of the effort. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Subliminal Consciousness. 


“Man is a stream whose source is hidden/’ Of man con¬ 
sidered in the profound sense of his ultimate relation to the 
essential cause of the Cosmos, it is only necessary to suggest 
the self-evident nature of this truth. The following of that 
stream back to its supposed source would be the exploration 
of the philosophies of genesis—a task that is no part of my 
undertaking. But of man as we familiarly know him—the 
ordinary personality that evolution has produced as that ex¬ 
pression of the profounder self best suited to survive for the 
time being in the environment in which he finds himself—I 
propose to present a theory of his most immediate source so 
far as his characteristics and inspiration are concerned. 

In order to present this clearly we must understand by 
some definitional characteristic the limitations of this man thus 
considered, whom we expect to differentiate from his other self 
as such source. I have spoken of him as the personality that 
evolution has produced. He is more than that: he is the sum 
of those elements of the profounder self that have become ex¬ 
pressed in that personality and become unified by the processes 
of natural selection. Thus he is that state of consciousness 
and volition directly related to our apparent world—the 
waking consciousness and thought. He is the ordinary man 
whom we know—that self-consciousness of the acts and 
purposes that make up the sum of what we call living, con¬ 
nected by a continuous chain of memory related to that experi¬ 
ence. This man is frequently called the objective self. 



S 'ubliminal Co nsciousness. 


45 


That beneath this self, this normal personality, there may 
be one or more submerged personalities or independent chains 
of memories, or planes of consciousness upon which this ob¬ 
jective self or some other segment of a profounder self may 
function, is a proposition that would meet with incredulity 
among most people. It is quite natural that it should be so, for 
as a rule human consciousness is so intensely concentrated 
upon this experience with material environment that any other 
degree or kind of consciousness appears improbable; and if it 
rarely occurs the paucity of knowledge as to the nature of the 
ego even now leads most persons who consider it seriously 
to attribute such supernormal states to supernatural agencies. 

Thus, though history and human experience are replete 
with examples of profound changes in personality, of remark¬ 
able accessions of talent, of the expressions of genius, of the 
exercise of supernormal powers and the possession of psychic 
faculties, and of the state of ecstasy in which the subject seems 
to enter a sphere of experience greatly transcending the normal 
one, their explanation has been attempted upon the theory of 
delusion, of supernatural interposition, or of divine gift, just 
as the predilection of the theorist dictated. 

For some years past these phenomena have been the sub¬ 
ject of serious, competent, and systematic observation and 
study, by an organized body of workers,* for the purpose of 
discovering their true explanation. The evidence accumulated 
is so overwhelming that there is no doubt left that beneath the 
threshold of our ordinary waking state of consciousness there 
is not only a complex of organic processes but an intelligent, 
vital control of them, and states of consciousness which, 
though ordinarily submerged, are ever emerging into the wak¬ 
ing state with varying degrees of vividness, supplementing or 
modifying it, and under special conditions wholly supplanting 
it for the time being. These states of consciousness, as a 
whole, we may well call the subliminal self; and when evoked 
*The Society for Psychical Research. 


4 6 


The Esoteric Art of Living . 


by artifice or when spontaneously manifesting and assuming 
independent chains of memories relating only to them¬ 
selves respectively, they have been termed secondary or multi¬ 
plex personalities. 

Among the simplest manifestations of the subliminal self 
of which we will interest ourselves here must be classed those 
which, though very frequent, are yet so unobtrusive that their 
significance escapes the ordinary attention. These are the 
multitude of the so-called automatic or unconscious actions— 
all the organized processes, as walking, eating, writing, piano¬ 
playing, and the great number of acts performed in the conduct 
of life without holding the consciousness upon them through¬ 
out their execution. Many of them require only that the 
waking consciousness should inaugurate them, and they are 
then carried on to completion without further assistance from 
it; but in other instances their very inception as well as their 
completion is entirely outside the waking consciousness. 

It is in this field of manifestation that the subliminal self 
is most fully engaged with most persons, and in fact these 
functions are quite indispensable to the complex life we have 
evolved. If the waking consciousness were required to super¬ 
intend in detail the fulfilment of all our acts, life would be 
an endless drudgery and the ego would have no time or oppor¬ 
tunity to incorporate into its field of consciousness any thought 
higher than the details referred to. This is one of the ends 
and beneficent results of evolution. As in a community or 
body politic it is necessary for the highest State that there be 
a division of labor, so the highest state in the body is effected 
by a division of the labor of consciousness; and thus that part 
of the consciousness which we call the subliminal has not only 
assumed the duty of carrying on the ceaseless processes of the 
organism, but, as well, it superintends and carries to comple¬ 
tion the multitude of acts that make up the sum of life, leaving 
the other segments of consciousness free for other and still 
higher activities. 


5 *ubliminal Consciousness. 


47 


What we may term the next degree of emergence is shown 
in that class of experiences where memories that seem to have 
become entirely latent, and are forgotten to the waking con¬ 
sciousness, either spontaneously reappear to it or are summoned 
by some one of the various methods hit upon by experience. 
These latent memories or states are of two general classes, 
one being the memory of individual experiences taken into 
the consciousness through the sense channels, either known 
or unknown to the waking state, and the other being the 
memories of things cognized by the subliminal consciousness 
by other means than the recognized methods of sense per¬ 
ception. I will speak of this second class when referring to 
telepathy. 

Both casual experience and experiment tend to prove that 
everything we have experienced—all that has affected con¬ 
sciousness through the senses—is retained in perfect memory 
somewhere by the ego. We well know that it is not so retained 
in the waking consciousness, or the primary personality, and 
we must conclude that the subliminal self is its repository and 
conserver. The memory of such experience becomes latent 
only to the primary self. In the ordinary course of life these 
memories are ever emerging, in greater or less degree, from 
their subliminal sum, pleasing, instructing, reminding, or even 
startling the primary self. In reminiscent mood the plane of 
consciousness is temporarily shifted from the objective world 
and thought to the borderland of the subliminal, and the “for¬ 
gotten” past rises like a dream before the mind. So, if the 
voluntary consciousness be not strongly concentrated upon 
the objective experiences, or if the merging of the conscious¬ 
ness between the two planes be facilitated, then the latent im¬ 
pressions and memories continually emerge and blend with the 
objective experience often in a most helpful and satisfactory 
manner. 

Experience has taught the race certain devices that tend 
to effect this result. I will refer to one that has for 


48 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


centuries been employed in some form the world over, and to 
whose agency divine powers have been popularly attributed. 
It is crystal-gazing. When a person in whom that emergence 
of memory from the subliminal realm is especially facile gazes 
steadily into the crystal, the pool, the well, or other object for 
concentration, he sees images of scenes with which he was once 
acquainted but the memory of which had been wholly lost to 
his waking consciousness. This is not only true of things of 
which the'gazer was objectively conscious when they were per¬ 
ceived, but also of scenes and incidents that were conveyed by 
the senses to the brain, but of which the waking consciousness 
took no note—as, for instance, the particular spot of ivy upon 
a particular wall of a house situated on a street that one passes 
but of which he is wholly unconscious so far as his dominant 
personality is concerned. He may also see images that repre¬ 
sent thoughts of others cognized telepathically by the sub¬ 
liminal self. It will be seen that this device serves merely to 
inhibit concentration of consciousness upon the objective en¬ 
vironment, and thus permits the consciousness of the sublimi¬ 
nal self to emerge into the waking state. 

This practically perfect memory is also evidenced in some 
pathological cases, where the center of maximum conscious¬ 
ness is shifted, as in the oft-referred-to case of the servant girl 
who in delirium repeated, in languages unknown to her, matter 
she had years before heard in the presence of her employer. 
To this we may add the popularly admitted class where a 
person, finding himself in imminent danger of loss of life, is 
conscious of his whole past life, as the memories seem in¬ 
stantaneously to emerge from the subliminal whole; as Byron, 
describes in the “Giaur”— 

“ ’Twas but a moment that he stood, 

Then sped as if by death pursued; 

But in that moment o’er his soul 
Winters of memory seemed to roll, 

And gather in that drop of time 
A life of pain, an age of crime.” 


Subliminal Consciousness. 


49 


We will next consider a function that seems to belong to the 
subliminal phase of consciousness, perhaps to the exclusion of 
the other. For the ordinary waking or supraliminal conscious¬ 
ness there are no means of obtaining knowledge of environ¬ 
ment or of perceiving another's thought except through the 
recognized channels of sense; but this is not true for the sub¬ 
liminal consciousness. It is in direct relational touch with 
the subliminal states of others, and may also perceive 
the state of the waking consciousness or thought of an¬ 
other. This relationship has been termed telepathy, and 
by reason of it arise all the phenomena of the transfer¬ 
ence, psychically, either of the conscious thought or the 
subliminal thought of another, as well as the deeper 
psychic perceptions and reproductions of states of conscious¬ 
ness of others, whether formulated in thought or not. Says 
Professor Oliver J. Lodge, of telepathy: “Except by reason 
of paucity of instance, I consider it as firmly grounded as any 
of the less familiar facts of Nature, such as one deals with in 
a laboratory.” In speaking of psychic science before the Brit¬ 
ish Association, Professor Wm. Crookes said: “It would be 
well to begin with telepathy: with the fundamental law, as I 
believe it to be, that thoughts and images may be transferred 
from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized 
organs of sense—that knowledge may enter the human mind 
without being communicated in any hitherto known or recog¬ 
nized ways." 

The establishing of the fact of telepathy as a part of our 
common stock of information is one of the most notable ad¬ 
vances of knowledge, and is largely due to the admirable work 
of the Society for Psychical Research. The evidence adduced 
has been convincing. Experimental cases are mostly of that 
class where the agent consciously projects a thought, and the 
percipient, being a party to the experiment, is tranquil and 
receptive in mind. The thought is first cognized in the sub¬ 
liminal consciousness and emerges into the waking conscious- 


5 ° 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


ness, there forming an image, or thought-formula. The recep¬ 
tion first in the subliminal realm seems to be indicated by the 
fact that there is sometimes a latency manifested before the 
thought emerges, as when the percipient, while engaged in the 
endeavor to perceive the thought at the time held by the agent, 
perceives instead the thought or image which the agent held 
in mind some minutes before, but which was not perceived 
then. There is a class of cases in which the percipient is un¬ 
aware of the effort made to impress him, yet perceives the 
influence and acts upon it, even at a distance—as where hyp¬ 
notic sleep is induced at a distance by the effort of the agent 
but unknown to the subject. 

What have been called “phantasms of the living”—cases 
where the percipient sees or hears another, though he is at a 
distance and still in the body—have been tentatively explained 
upon the theory of telepathy. They are noted as generally 
having occurred at great emotional crises in the lives of the 
persons thus seen or heard, and it is believed that the intense 
thought is telepathically transferred to the subliminal con¬ 
sciousness of the percipient, who is at the time in a condition of 
rapport. If, however, they be included with “phantasms of 
the dead/’ and all considered as belonging to another class of 
experiences, they still point in most cases to the existence of 
subliminal faculties to perceive them. 

As remarkable as all this is, it pales into insignificance be¬ 
side the extension given to the theory of telepathy by those 
forced to adopt it as the only alternative to the “spirit hypoth¬ 
esis.” But when the “trance-personality” of the medium re¬ 
ports in the form of messages facts that have never been in the 
consciousness of the sitter, and only reside in the knowledge 
of some remote and distant person, it must be admitted that 
such facts have never been produced experimentally in tele¬ 
pathy. As for the dramatic character of such communications, 
and the arrangement of facts and data into “mosaics of 
thought which, however defaced, still irresistibly suggest the 


Subliminal Consciousness . 


5 1 


habits, tastes, and memories of some friend deceased—for this 
I know of no telepathic or clairvoyant analogy.”* 

But we may let these facts prove their own special case; 
we have ample evidence of telepathy otherwise. 

A faculty of the subliminal self is manifested in experiences 
termed psychometric. Here the subject perceives physical and 
mental conditions, thoughts, purposes, and characteristics that 
appertain to the persons associated with some inanimate 
object. When the object—as a letter, a ring, or a bit of lace 
—is brought into the subject’s sphere of perception, he be¬ 
comes, by attention, en rapport with its past associations, and 
can often delineate them more accurately than those who would 
depend upon discovering them through the objective channels 
of sense. This knowledge does not pertain to the waking con¬ 
sciousness and cannot be acquired in the recognized manner, 
but appertains to the subliminal self. 

Clairvoyance and clairaudience are likewise to be classed 
here; they do not depend upon the ordinary means of percep¬ 
tion. It may have occurred to many of my readers that what 
we term “the five senses” are only specialized consciousness, 
related to as many devices evolved for registering different 
ranges of vibrations, and that behind them all there is but the 
one sense—the faculty of awareness. This one fundamental fac¬ 
ulty of knowing is not restricted to the five recognized avenues 
except when functioning through the supraliminal or waking 
normal self. There may even be an independence of them and 
yet a simulation of their use, as in the transposition of the 
senses—where the person apparently sees or hears through the 
agency of the fingers. 

In all the foregoing classes the knowledge is acquired by 
the subliminal self and emerges into the supraliminal or 
objective state, while the normal consciousness is in most 
cases preserved. We have now to note that class where 
there is, to a greater or less degree, a segregation of 
♦William Romaine Newbold. 


5 2 The Esoteric Art of Living. 

personality; where there is little evidence of the blending 
of the two states; where there appears to be distinct but limited 
intelligences with separate chains of memories, acting inde¬ 
pendently and concurrently, or the one submerged for the 
time being by the other. This statement may suggest to the 
minds of some that I propose to confuse with evidence of dual 
consciousness the evidence that many hold to indicate extra- 
terrene influence, commonly called “spirit control.” Such is 
not intended. There is ample evidence for both hypotheses, 
and neither one in my opinion will explain all the phenomena. 

Leaving, then, the states where the subliminal conscious¬ 
ness emerges quite freely into the waking consciousness, we 
may note the borderland between these and those states that 
give no evidence of blending but maintain distinct chains of 
memories of their own. Much of what is called “automatic 
writing” has been classed here. This is an experience where 
the subject in a normal state of consciousness writes intelli¬ 
gently, but is unaware of what he writes. But we must not 
forget here, as at many other points of this inquiry, that, as 
Professor F. W. H. Myers has said, “the wide class of auto¬ 
matic ‘messages’ include phenomena of various types, some of 
which certainly point prima facie to the intervention—per¬ 
haps the very indirect intervention—of the surviving person¬ 
alities of the dead.” 

The fulfilment of post-hypnotic suggestion should be men¬ 
tioned here. These are cases where in the hypnotic state the 
subject is told that when awakened he is to do some specific 
act, as to open an umbrella, to write a poem, etc. When 
awakened the normal consciousness returns, but he has no 
memory of the suggestion. Nevertheless, at the appointed 
time the subliminal or the secondary self executes the sugges¬ 
tion. In some cases the normal self knows that the act is being 
done and seems to execute it, having received the impulse from 
the subliminal self, yet is still unaware that it is done at the 
suggestion, but supposes it to be of its own volition. There 


S u bliminal Consciousn ess. 


53 


are other cases where even the knowledge of the execution 
does not come into the waking consciousness, as where the 
poem is suggested and the subject when awakened writes it, 
the hand being concealed from his view and he in the mean¬ 
time reading aloud from a book and wholly unconscious of the 
fact that he is writing. But, while the waking or normal self 
has no knowledge of the act done, as soon as the subject is re¬ 
hypnotized he knows everything done in fulfilment of the sug¬ 
gestion, and if mistakes were made he corrects them. 

Somewhat similar are cases where the waking conscious¬ 
ness comes under an inhibitory influence of the subliminal self 
by reason of a post-hypnotic suggestion, as where a female 
subject was told while hypnotized that when awakened some 
one of those present would be absent from the room, and when 
awakened, though normally conscious of every one else, she 
was unconscious of the presence of the one thus mentally ban¬ 
ished, though he was there all the time. In like manner, in 
accordance with the appropriate post-hypnotic suggestion, the 
subject would see and not hear, or hear and not see, some par¬ 
ticular person. In these cases we have an inhibitory influence 
of the subliminal self affecting the normal or waking con¬ 
sciousness ; but that the subliminal self was always conscious of 
the true state of things is shown by the fact that though the 
agent was entirely banished from the waking consciousness 
he was able by assuming an impersonal attitude to get steal¬ 
thily back into communication with a subliminal consciousness, 
but not with the same consciousness from which he had been 
expressly banished. 

The independent knowledge and intelligence of the sublim¬ 
inal self are shown also in experiences with the anaesthetized 
arm. The subject has no sensation whatever in the arm or 
hand, but when it lies behind a screen out of sight, and an 
opera-glass is put into it, the hand takes it from the box, holds 
it properly and brings it into the range of vision, where it is 
for the first time perceived by the normal self. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Subliminal Consciousness ( Continued ). 


We may next note those experiences where there is first an 
independent manifestation of the two intelligences—the sub¬ 
liminal unperceived by the supraliminal, but followed by a 
complete usurpation of the field by the subliminal: as in the 
case where the subject was conversing in the normal state 
with A, and turns and continues orally the conversation 
carried on by signs with B, who was behind her and whose 
presence was unknown. The secondary personality had 
quickly emerged and controlled the field to the exclusion of the 
normal self. But it must be remembered that if there be other 
extraneous intelligences that may in any way act upon a person 
this same result would be possible and the manner of its oc¬ 
currence would be similar. 

Finally, in the phenomena of hypnotism we have abundant 
evidence of the possibility of the segregation of the personality, 
the apparent creation of one or more limited chains of memo¬ 
ries, and of distinct and independent experiences, lying below 
the normal consciousness, that come into expression when the 
normal consciousness is submerged or inhibited. Neither the 
psychology nor the physiology of hypnotism has been satis¬ 
factorily explained. There seem to be in the hypnotic sleep a 
withdrawal of consciousness from the external attention and 
a concentration upon organic recuperation. In general there is 
inhibition to some degree of the normal state and a concentra¬ 
tion upon others. 

For my present purpose I desire only to mention hypnotism 




5 a bliminal Consciousness. 


55 


as one of the agencies that have disclosed the marvels of the 
subliminal self, from the “uprush of ideas and impulses, ma¬ 
tured beneath the conscious threshold,” to the emergence from 
the subliminal realm of states of consciousness so distinct from 
the normal self as to have earned the designation of secondary 
or multiplex personalities. Prof. F. W. H. Myers has said : 

“I hold that each of us contains the potentialities of many different 
arrangements of the elements of our personality, each arrangement being 
distinguishable from the rest by differences in the chain of memories which 
pertain to it. The arrangement with which we habitually identify our¬ 
selves—what we call the normal or primary self—consists, in my view, of 
elements selected for us in the struggle for existence with special refer¬ 
ence to the maintenance of ordinary physical needs, and is not necessarily 
superior in any other respect to the latent personalities which lie alongside 
it—the fresh combinations of our personal elements which may be evoked 
by accident or design, in a variety to which we can at present assign no 
limit.” 

The questions, of course, arise: What is the nature of 
these personalities manifesting in the one individual (I do not 
refer to alleged extra-terrene minds controlling) ? What is 
the degree of their separateness? How distinct and indepen¬ 
dent are they ? And, finally, how are they essentially correlated, 
and how may that unity and correlation be fostered rather 
than their separation accented ? In the first place, the evidence 
shows so gradual a transition in the cases—from the simple 
automatic actions performed with some degree of knowledge 
on the part of the objective self to the apparently wholly sepa¬ 
rated chains of actions and memories constituting these sec¬ 
ondary or multiplex personalities—that it is fair to conclude 
that they are but differences in the degree in which the func¬ 
tioning consciousness is concentrated upon the one or the 
other plane, or upon both in varying proportions. The distinct 
line of demarcation between the memory of one state and that 
of another will most likely be found to be a result of the 
physical basis of memory, or a correlation of experiences per¬ 
ceived and associated through limited brain areas. For in¬ 
stance, hypnotism has been said to be the suppression of con- 


56 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


sciousness related with all or part of the frontal lobe; hence, 
there is lacking in the hypnotic personality the memories and 
characteristics of the normal self, that part of the brain being 
correlated with that self. 

But if we analyze the nature of consciousness and memory, 
I think it will throw much light upon the question. Con¬ 
sciousness as a whole—as, for instance, the state of the self 
at any moment—must be the state of the subliminal self plus 
the sum total of experience impressed upon it. Thus it will be 
evident that in the essence of consciousness there may be no 
memory aside from the sum total of experience surviving as a 
result, just as the individual characteristics of a race evolved 
at different periods exist simultaneously, and not otherwise, in 
the individual. Now, memory arises when that consciousness 
is segregated and its divided parts relate themselves to the 
ideas of time and place and these become further related to each 
other. Thus consciousness becomes individually related to 
particular moments, places, and persons; and these individual 
states, which have become differentiated as memories, become 
related to one another by association. 

The placid sea presents a homogeneous and unified surface, 
but when acted upon by the zephyr it is broken into many 
facets, each related to an external condition; yet they are all 
of the same sea. Thus if we conceive the ultimate Self as the 
original essence, impressed with the sum total of experience 
and existing as an undifferentiated state of consciousness, we 
discover an adequate explanation for all the perplexing phe¬ 
nomena of the apparent loss, the segregation, and the sudden 
emergence of memory. The waking or supraliminal self is 
a segment of this sum total of consciousness, specifically related 
as a distinct chain of memories with a certain state of environ¬ 
ment and purposes. The hypnotic self, or the secondary 
personality, is another segment of this sum total of con¬ 
sciousness, specifically related as a distinct chain of memories 
with another state of environment and purposes. The same 


S 'u bliminal Co nscio usn ess. 


57 


may be said of sleep. Ecstasy is more than any of these, for 
strictly it is not a personal or memory state at all, but tran¬ 
scends them, and is a degree of realization of that sum total 
of consciousness, unsegregated and unrelated to environment 
in memory states. Barring ecstasy, all these will be seen to 
be merely emergences of the true and unified self into memory 
states, bearing some relationship to external environment or 
to subjective conditions. No doubt this sum total of con¬ 
sciousness becomes the reservoir of the effects of all experience. 
Says Professor Myers: 

“Suppose that my arm is rendered anesthetic by hypnotic suggestion, 
and rs then pricked without my seeing it—I shall be unconscious of the 
pricks. My normal self, that is to say, will be unconscious of them, and 
on the ordinary view my whole self will be unconscious of them. But I 
shall consider it as practically certain a priori that some phase of personal¬ 
ity of mine must have been conscious of the pricks and must have regis¬ 
tered them on some latent mnemonic chain. Thus, in a word, nothing 
which my organism does or suffers is unconscious; but the consciousness 
of any given act or endurance may form a part of a chain of memories 
which never happens to obtrude itself into my waking life.” 

The ultimate unity of all these states is indicated by many 
facts. There is a participation by the normal and the sub¬ 
liminal selves in many acts and memories, and, in cases where 
there appears to be no participation by the normal self in the 
memories or experience of the subjective personality, it would 
seem that the two have an actual basis of unity though not 
always evident in the experience. Says Professor Myers: “It 
sometimes happens, as Delboeuf and others have shown, that 
a subject who on waking from the hypnotic trance remembers 
nothing can be led by artifice to recollect all that he has done.” 
This, if true in one case, must be true in all similar ones, and 
discloses the fact that phenomena that appear to constitute 
separate personalities have an underlying basis of unity; and 
to establish that unity in a state of consciousness it is only 
necessary to find the associational links, or to create conditions 
for their spontaneous interrelation. 

The. phenomena of dreams disclose the same truth. Dream- 


5» 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


states are as independent as if no waking state had preceded 
them; that is, they are not related by a chain of memories, 
and usually they fade away from the waking consciousness al¬ 
most as soon as they appear. But in many cases, and under 
proper individual conditions, they become clear and perfect in 
the waking consciousness, especially when a slender thread of 
memory can be grasped by association with which the other 
memories are enabled to emerge with it. It must be evident, 
then, that any practise tending merely to evoke the conscious¬ 
ness in distinct chains of memories, in limited expressions, is 
not the method we should seek; but if we find there is a method 
that will unify into one consciousness all the memories which 
may emerge from the sum total, that method will deserve our 
earnest attention. I will refer particularly hereafter to what 
I conceive to be such a method. 

It has been hardly more than my purpose here to state a 
prima facie case for the existence of the subliminal self, with¬ 
out adducing an array of evidence or refining upon an analysis 
of its functionings, but seeking to state its existence and gen¬ 
eral nature in order that the activities of the normal or primary 
self may be intelligently conceived as connected therewith, 
drawing its most vital aid and support therefrom—hence to 
emphasize the fact that no Esoteric Art of Living can leave 
out of consideration its study and a knowledge of it. 

* * * 

It is now evident that the normal man—that ordinary 
waking state of consciousness related to the apparent world— 
is but a limited manifestation of a larger and profounder 
Self from which it may draw knowledge and inspiration. I 
have suggested that in truth there is, as a whole, one sum 
total of consciousness, parts of which become manifested in 
the objective life under such limitations and with such indepen¬ 
dence as to suggest the designation of personalities, though 
undoubtedly comprehended in that profounder Self which con¬ 
serves all knowledge and memories of the several. “It is con- 


Subliminal Conscio usness. 


59 


ceivable,” says Professor Myers, “that there may be for each 
man yet a more comprehensive personality—or say an in¬ 
dividuality—which correlates and comprises all known and un¬ 
known phases of his being. Such a notion can no longer be 
dismissed as merely mystical. Analogy points to it; and, 
though no observation could fully prove it, there may well be 
observations which make it probable.” This underlying unity 
is the source of all the differing phases of consciousness. Its 
maximum emergence in the physical organism, which it builds 
and controls, is the normal or supraliminal self, whereby it 
undergoes the differentiating process of evolution. 

To suppose, therefore, that this emergent point, the normal 
self, were all, or that it were the most important under all 
conditions, would be very faulty. Says Professor William 
Crookes: “Whilst it is clear that our knowledge of subcon¬ 
scious mentation is still to be developed, we must beware of 
rashly assuming that all variations from the normal waking 
condition are necessarily morbid. The human race has reached 
no fixed or changeless ideal; in every direction there is evolu¬ 
tion as well as disintegration.” It is no doubt true that the 
normal self is the phase of consciousness best adapted to the 
maintenance of the physical needs of the individual; but the 
physical needs are but small in importance compared with the 
larger needs of - the individual thus known. Hence we can 
understand the origin of the higher qualities of the mind and 
the loftier impulses of the deeper nature, which find no rela¬ 
tionship to merely physical needs. Music, art, and estheticism, 
altruism and universal love, are emergences of this higher 
consciousness, related to our particular plane of existence. All 
deep and profound impulses are surgings of this mighty under¬ 
sea of consciousness. Genius is the harmonious synchronizing 
of the lofty states of the subliminal with the normal man. 
Ecstasy is the abidance for the time in those subliminal states, 
unmarred by any cognition of the normal and limited. Of 
this constant emergence, Professor Myers says: “In this very 


6o 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


question of emergence of unfamiliar faculty from a subcon¬ 
scious stratum, our next step shows us faculty thus emerging 
which is of real use; products of subliminal mentation up- 
rushing into ordinary consciousness which actually benefit the 
waking life. Does this emergence occur in the normal life? 
My answer is that it does, and when it does it constitutes 
genius.” 

It is evident, then, the highest condition of life for us is 
that one which effects the most perfect synchronizing of the 
subliminal consciousness with the normal and environmental 
self: that condition of life which recognizes the due importance 
and purpose of the normal and cultivates its healthy exercise, 
and seeks to incorporate therewith the processes and results 
of the subliminal consciousness. If it were possible to know 
the facts, it is probable that we would find the lives of the 
truly great, the spiritually enlightened, to have been of this 
type. If this be the highest condition we may presently attain, 
or the full measure of the immediate results of evolution, the 
question at once arises as to how it may be attained, or what 
course will conduce to its realization. 

It is pertinent to suggest here the reason why such a method 
as the “hypnotic” is not the advisable one, and can never 
conduce to the desired end. The reason lies in the fact that the 
method severs or segregates the consciousness, creating and 
perpetuating separate chains of memories, and suppresses the 
normal state—two things, as I believe, we must avoid. If the 
end above spoken of is to be attained, the self-consciousness of 
the normal state is never to be lost, nor are new and distinct 
phases of personality to be created out of the subliminal con¬ 
sciousness ; but the self-consciousness is to be preserved intact, 
and the subliminal consciousness is to be realized as far as 
possible and blended therewith—thus unifying all memory 
and consciousness in the one. This can best be attained through 
the evolutionary processes and results of living the higher life, 
as suggested in preceding papers, and by a proper and rational 


SublimInal Consciousness. 


61 


practise of introspection (or meditation) and concentration. 
The reason for the former is found in the nature of evolution 
itself; for the latter, it lies in the fact that it is the only method 
of practise which retains the self-consciousness of the normal 
state and at the same time creates special facilities for the 
emergence therein of the knowledge and states of the sub¬ 
liminal self: nothing being relinquished, except at will, and 
all gains of conscious states added to and blended with the one 
in possession. But I will refer to this specifically in a subse¬ 
quent paper. 

We have found the subliminal self to be the source of the 
normal or supraliminal self, and have noted some of its faculties 
and characteristics as it emerges into the normal phase of life. 
What is the ultimate nature of this vast storehouse of the soul ? 
Has it always been individualized, manifesting through suc¬ 
cessive states of expression, or was there a time when out of 
the Infinite Consciousness it took the limitations of personality ? 
In any event, can it be other than the original essence wdiich in 
the past has been evolving, by processes of adaptation to physi¬ 
cal environment and to the ends of individual well-being, into 
the complex and marvelous being called man? And as noth¬ 
ing can be evolved that has not existed potentially, must we 
not ascribe to it the vastest possibilities—the attributes of di¬ 
vinity ? Says Professor Myers: 

“If, as we get deeper down, we come on even more definite indications 
of powers and tendencies within ourselves which are not such as natural 
selection could have been expected to develop, then we may begin to won¬ 
der on what it was that the terrene process of natural selection, as we have 
it, began at the first to exercise modifying power. To such a question 
no answer whatever can be given which is not in some sense mystical, or 
rather metempirical, as dealing with hypotheses which no experience of ours 
can test.. But it should be remembered that there is no metaphysical or 
physiological answer in possession of the field. The competition is open; 
die course is clear.” 

Leaving the profounder problem of the ultimate nature of 
the real Self, let us consider that which immediately concerns 
us; namely, its possibilities with reference to the life we are 


6a 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


now living. These are, first, its influence upon the waking 
normal self by emergence into and blending with it; second, 
its responsiveness to the influences of external conditions and 
thought and its perfect memory. Accepting evolution, I would 
expect, a priori, to find these characteristics inhering in the 
profounder self. The ability successfully to adjust and adapt 
the organism to environment presupposes a high degree of re¬ 
sponsiveness and plasticity; while progress and unfoldment 
require creative or originative possibilities, coordinated with 
retentiveness, or memory. If these be the essential character¬ 
istics of the subliminal self that have played so important a 
part in the past of life, it is evident that they must be reckoned 
with in any attempt to understand the possibilities of the 
future or to facilitate the highest attainment therein. 

The emergence of the knowledge of the subliminal self at 
every point of life has been noted; it remains for us briefly to 
consider the other characteristics. The subliminal self is ex¬ 
ceedingly susceptible to suggestion ; that is, it is inherently re¬ 
sponsive. This is abundantly shown in all hypnotic experiments, 
where for the time being the normal consciousness is more or 
less suppressed and but a segment of the subliminal manifests. 
This responsiveness has played a large part in the causes that 
have produced the mental differentiations in the evolution of 
man; but, without the controlling guidance of the reason and 
will evolved in the normal or objective self (as in the case of 
hypnotism), it could become destructive of the higher interests. 
I believe it is the intelligent and understanding control and 
guidance by the will and reason that may utilize this faculty 
and effect far-reaching and beneficent results to the individual. 
When one can, in a small degree, unify his waking conscious¬ 
ness with the processes of the subliminal, and blend his volun¬ 
tary thought with the recuperative powers of the subliminal 
self, he may heal himself when the operations of the vital forces 
are disturbed; he may keep them equilibrated, and himself calm 
and peaceful, and with the right philosophy and aspiration may 
enter quite a new realm of experience and life. 


5 ubliminal Consciousness. 


63 


The subliminal self has practically a perfect memory, and 
states of consciousness oncefixed tend to persist or recur because 
of this faculty of retentiveness. The vast importance of this 
fact as related to our present life must be plain, and is the 
most ample justification for the insistence upon maintaining 
high ideals in thought and act. It explains how character is 
builded, and why it persists long after the experience which 
was the cause of the modification has faded from the memory 
of the normal or objective self. Thought does not only affect 
the momentary waking consciousness, but its effects sink far 
down into the subliminal and there modify the existing states— 
perchance to emerge again when the moment is opportune. 
How important, then, become our objective life and thought! 
And what a molding and constructive agency we have in our 
ability to select, to some extent, our waking states and 
thoughts; to engage in the building and shaping of the deeper 
and truer self for the higher expressions of consciousness, by 
using care and method in bringing into the normal state the 
true and noble and beautiful, and excluding therefrom their 
opposites! This I call selective mentation and psychism. Thus 
one may do for himself in a few years what the slow processes 
of evolution may require generations to do for a race. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


The Rationale of Concentration. 


Knowing the characteristics of the subliminal conscious¬ 
ness, which are so potent in their effect upon the life, we are 
in a position to understand the philosophy of concentration 
and introspection (or meditation). Certain profound experi¬ 
ences have been repeated century after century in the lives of 
many persons separated by time and' country, and especially 
among those who have truly understood and practised the 
methods of life sanctioned by the esoteric philosophies. These 
experiences, though very real to those who have evolved them, 
have been regarded by the average mind as the result of imag¬ 
inary illusion. They have taken varying forms of mani¬ 
festation, but may be comprehensively spoken of as deep moral 
or spiritual regeneration, or a profound insight into and 
knowledge of the inner self, its latent beauties and powers, or 
of ecstasy. Various philosophies have been formulated to ex¬ 
plain and express them, and perhaps the most cardinal and 
comprehensive feature of the best of them is the idea of the 
perception of the Divine Self within—a union with the Infi¬ 
nite, or at-one-ment with the Divine, or psychoplasm. 

Thus the Hindu Yoga philosophy leads one by an elaborate 
preparation and practise to the gradual elimination of the fol¬ 
lies and vain pursuits of ordinary life—from the attachments 
and aversions of average thought to a state where it is sup¬ 
posed the soul perceives directly its divine nature and abides 
in that realization. Much the same purpose, expressed in 
varying manner and pursued with varying methods of attain- 




The Rationale of Concentration . 


65 


ment, actuated the Mystics. They believed they attained a 
mystic union with God. The Quietists, the Children of the 
Light, and others believed in seeking the light of divinity 
within the soul. 

The experience attained by these persons has been, in the 
main, inspiring, uplifting, and beneficial. If the whole life 
may have been marred by a too austere asceticism or a miscon¬ 
ceived alienation from the duties of the objective life, it cannot 
be properly urged against the experience that has given a pro¬ 
founder knowledge of the real Self and its powers, but rather 
against the lameness of the philosophy by which it has been 
sought to explain it. Whatever else may ultimately be in¬ 
cluded in the explanation of such experiences, we may safely 
say, from our knowledge of the profounder man, that the indi¬ 
vidual discovery and emergence of the subliminal faculties and 
consciousness must be first assigned. This view is strength¬ 
ened by the knowledge that introspection and concentration 
tend to furnish the conditions for the emergence of the sub¬ 
liminal consciousness, producing phenomena that transcend 
the ordinary experience. 

Now that we have identified these world-wide experiences 
in similitude with those which scientific investigation has dis¬ 
closed as possible in every soul, and further with what we may 
attain by these methods of concentration and meditation, we 
may consider the true purpose and effect of the methods that 
have been so much talked of in the philosophy of the New 
Thought. The purpose and effect of Concentration are to 
mold the consciousness into new or more beneficent states; 
those of meditation or introspection are to disclose the higher 
states and faculties of the subliminal self, and merge them 
with the objective consciousness. Both of these may be prop¬ 
erly classed as concentration, because the higher form of medi¬ 
tation is preceded by some degree of mastery in concentration. 

It is evident that the methods as well the results may be 
properly divided into two classes. I call the first constructive 


66 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


and eliminative; the second, the revealing or interpretative. 
As to the first, we may formulate a law thus: The mind be¬ 
comes that which it contemplates. There is a merging of the 
consciousness in the concept held or the idea contemplated. 
As the habitual life and thought, the influence of environment, 
and the complex conditions of existence are the factors that 
mold the habitual consciousness, so the special effort of thought 
by which the mind rules out of the field all concepts except that 
which it is desired to hold also molds and shapes the conscious¬ 
ness to that special end and condition. 

I would add these corollaries to the above law: (i) 
With every expression of a state there is a tendency to repeat 
it; and, conversely, with every suppression of such expression 
there is a tendency to infrequency: and from these tendencies 
arise a permanent state. (2) Concentration builds up a brain 
structure through which the special functioning or manifesta¬ 
tion of thought or consciousness correlated with it takes place 
with ever-increasing ease and perfection. (3) The soul’s 
manifestations being known only in states of consciousness, 
it grows into the state held in contemplation, and the states be¬ 
come permanent by the law of use. 

Upon the physical side the cellular brain tissues are thus 
greatly changed, and hence the usual functionings of the mind 
are also changed. Brain cells necessary to a healthful, cheer¬ 
ful, happy, and truthful functioning of the mind may be vastly 
increased. Mentation in conformity with ascertained truth, 
pure thought, and lofty aspiration may become accomplished 
and normal states; while brain cells that have become con¬ 
structed through wrong thought, for harmful and untruthful 
manifestations of mind, may be atrophied by inhibition and the 
mind cured of its vagaries. 

Upon the psychic side, the marvelous plasticity of the sub¬ 
liminal mind, its responsiveness to suggestion and to objec¬ 
tive thought, together with its wonderful memory and re¬ 
tentiveness, are all powerfully affected by the practise; and. 


The Rationale of Concentration. 


6 7 


as the faculties and tendencies so impressed upon the sublimi¬ 
nal consciousness are ever tending in greater or less degree to 
emerge into the supraliminal state, it will be readily under¬ 
stood why calm and peace, the uplifting influence of lofty 
thought, long succeed the actual minutes spent in the practise. 
It also conduces to mastery of the mental action—to increased 
power of application and more forceful and clearer thought. 
Mastery of one’s mental states, irrespective of environment, 
follows; and the power to create one’s subjective condition at 
will may be attained. 

Among the important results of the possible use of power 
attained by proper effort is the conscious direction and con¬ 
trol thereby of the subtle life forces, by which their mainte¬ 
nance in equilibrium or direction for healing and helpful pur¬ 
poses may be acquired. 

The second class embraces the practises in what I have 
termed the revealing or interpreting state. This is best attained 
after some conscious mastery of the other, but is more fre¬ 
quently practised without special reference to any attainment in 
that direction. It consists in placing the mind, to some degree, 
in an impersonal and passive but not negative state, unperturbed 
by the legion of thoughts that distract and claim its attention 
in ordinary waking consciousness, and allowing its innate, im¬ 
personal, and higher nature to manifest in outward or normal 
consciousness. It is .that attitude of mind best suited to 
“knowing” one’s self—the Silence. In this state, no one sec¬ 
tion of the brain being dominant in mental activity, the whole 
organ may act as a unit, and a higher degree of knowledge 
and a clearer and more coordinated conception of a subject 
may result. In this attitude, and with aspiration and desire, 
the soul renews its more natural and original relation with the 
subtle and higher psychic forces, resulting in renewed psychic 
and spiritual power and a more equilibrated condition: as, we 
may say, the soul in natural sleep, left untrammeled by objec¬ 
tive thought, renews its fundamental relations with the body, 


68 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


resulting in great recuperative effects. As we must conclude 
that there is no isolation in the Universe, but that all is in 
interaction, .the experience in the “silence” and its effect upon 
the waking consciousness furnish prima facie evidence of such 
a proposition as is above stated. 

As^ we know that the plastic and highly suggestible sub¬ 
liminal self has been impressed for years with the thoughts 
and limitations of the objective life, and that these elements 
in each life have been different, we shall not be surprised to 
learn that the silence does not at once and with all persons 
disclose the transcendent beauty and wisdom of the subliminal 
self. That which one has been accustomed to hold as his ideal, 
as well as the states of mind habitually indulged, the practises 
engaged in, and in fact the whole tenor of life, cannot but have 
affected the states of subliminal consciousness; and it will be 
no less than we should expect that they will emerge and greatly 
mar or hinder the higher manifestations. The stream will not 
rise higher than its source, and the states of consciousness will 
habitually rise no higher than the manner of life, thought, and 
aspiration will warrant; hence, the result will closely approxi¬ 
mate in equivalency the elements one brings into the silence. 
Every thought and aspiration will cast a vote to determine the 
result; therefore, the daily life should in all respects be made 
to conform as nearly as practicable to the higher ideals. A 
permanent realization of the higher Self will never come to one 
not seeking to live according to the higher life. One must 
keep the thought habitually pure and the aspirations lofty, 
and must love truth and wisdom. If he set the soul’s desire 
upon anything less he will tend toward that instead, and en¬ 
list the active efforts and interference of the unwise and un¬ 
developed on the other plane of life. He should avoid criti¬ 
cism of persons, in thought or word, other than the recogni¬ 
tion of a state for the purpose of some good and laudable end 
—and thus eliminate that evil from the consciousness, and de¬ 
stroy the rapport with beings who love detraction and are in¬ 
tensified and pleased with such a state in us. 


The Rationale of Concentration. 


69 


The higher states we shall thus seek in the Silence will 
come from within—primarily, a revelation of the subliminal 
consciousness; but when they arise there may be rapport with 
the same or other states without. And, as we know from the 
demonstration of psychical experiment that one of the funda¬ 
mental functions of the subliminal self is telepathy, who may 
at present set bounds to the perception by and the disclosures 
to the consciousness, through this method of purifying and 
controlling the self and aspirationally relating it to the higher 
conceptions ? 

Here I would, more particularly than heretofore, call at¬ 
tention to the wide difference between this practise and that 
of inducing a manifestation of the subliminal consciousness 
by hypnotic influence. Hypnotism has been defined by Nor¬ 
man Prince, M.D., as “the more or less (according to the 
stage) complete inhibition or going to sleep of the frontal 
lobes as a whole.” And of the frontal lobes the same able 
writer says: “The activity of this level is the dominant con¬ 
sciousness for the time being of the individual, and, so long as 
it is in activity, is the personality of the individual.” And 
again: “If, further, all the higher centers were removed or 
their power of functioning suppressed, the consciousness would 
be limited to the activity of the second level, which would con¬ 
stitute a second personality, and would be of a more or less 
automatic character.” And Professor F. W. H. Myers says 
that “hypnotism is only a name given to a group of empirical 
methods of inducing fresh personalities—of shifting the cen¬ 
ter of maximum energy and starting a new mnemonic chain.” 
Thus hypnotism becomes merely a method of suppressing the 
normal and dominant self and summoning into objective activ¬ 
ity some subconscious chain of memories, some segment of the 
self, some weak and limited personal phase, uncontrolled by 
the will and reason of the dominant consciousness. Instead of 
finding the true self, that self is segregated and its alienated 
parts are brought into inharmonious manifestation. 

Concentration, on the other hand, sacrifices nothing of self- 


70 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


consciousness, and gains the added consciousness of the sub¬ 
liminal states, blending and unifying them into a whole—or, 
with masterful effort, withdraws the consciousness from any 
field and centers it upon another at will. There has been much 
confusion upon this point, growing principally out of the lack, 
possibly, of a greater personal knowledge of the methods and 
results of concentration; from the fact that mono-ideaism may 
be a characteristic of both conditions; and from the further 
fact that many persons imagine that they can effect nothing 
through the agency of the subliminal except by the method of 
auto-suggestion, which, it is well known, can also produce 
hypnosis in some very susceptible subjects. 

As to the condition of mono-ideaism, the difference be¬ 
tween the two states is, as I conceive it, that in the hypnotic the 
idea is firmly retained by a sort of helpless responsiveness of 
the segregated subliminal personality divested of the will and 
reason of the objective or waking self; while in that of concen¬ 
tration it is the result of a masterful effort of the mind that 
is able to control its mentation, excluding at will from the field 
of consciousness such ideas as it determines to exclude, and 
holding such as it chooses to hold, with the ability to relinquish 
the same at will. 

As to auto-suggestion, it is, in either case, only a method 
of inducing a condition. In concentration, and for perceiving 
subliminal processes, it is mainly useful to him who has not 
fully realized that there is no power whatever in the sugges¬ 
tion itself, but that the power lies altogether in the responsive¬ 
ness of the consciousness to the suggestion; and that if the 
power lies in that source, then all one need do to accomplish 
the object is to substitute the original purpose, will, and action, 
aptly expressed or mentally held, and dispense with the indi¬ 
rect method of suggestion. Thus the same power that lies 
inane and inefficient, until called out in responsiveness to ex¬ 
ternal suggestion, may rise into original and creative action. 
This is the exercise of self-knowledge of the inner self. 


CHAPTER IX. 


The Normal and the Supernormal. 


The man of the Stone Age—whose body was scantily pro¬ 
tected from the elements by rude skins, whose habitation was 
the natural cavern of the earth, whose handicraft rose no 
higher than the chipping of flint stones for weapons, whose 
principal pastime was the fierce chase of the wild boar, and 
whose great peril was the ravage of the cave-bear and lion and 
the depredations of his benighted brother—was perfectly “nor¬ 
mal” for his time. If we imagine a conclave of these poor 
souls, with a language little more comprehensive than the im¬ 
mediate physical needs demanded, discussing the possibilities 
of the race for expressing a higher ideal, we may readily con¬ 
clude that, though there might have been vague longings 
rudely expressed, occasional gleams of a seemingly wild hope 
that there might be a condition in which men would live in 
huts constructed where the wish should determine; that there 
could be a happy respite from strife sufficient to enable the 
cultivation of the ground around the hut; that their mysterious 
fire would fuse the intractable iron and they would replace 
their good stone implements by others of marvelous strength; 
and that their women should abandon their bone ornaments for 
others of the shining metal—such a dream of the wild fancy 
was promptly discouraged by the majority expression as being 
too remote a digression from the “normal” man and his “nor¬ 
mal” life. 

Ages after, the lake-dwellers of Switzerland—with habita¬ 
tions constructed upon piles driven into the lake bottoms and 




72 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


surrounded by the protecting expanse of blue waters, in which 
habitations their families lay down to sleep with the assurance 
of some safety, and with whom the art of metal-working had 
dawned—had realized the cave-dwellers’ Utopian dream, and, 
although still fiercely struggling with Nature and man, were 
daring to dream of other Utopias yet to come. But those 
among them who looked forward to such hopeful times were 
defiantly disregarding the normal standard of progress then 
recognized. The normal man, the average attainment, the 
conventional type of hunter and marauder, stood as the last 
word for human progress—as the average ideal of the race, 
beyond and above which it must have seemed folly to expect to 
attain. 

Succeeding centuries brought slow but inevitable change, 
and the normal man of early historic periods, though rude 
and barbaric compared with us, was beyond the dream of the 
lake-dwellers; and the normal man and normal life of our 
own time, with its great exemption from peril, its lib¬ 
erty of individual action, its extensive grasp and develop¬ 
ment of natural resources, and the revolutionary advance 
of ethics and general knowledge, could hardly have been 
conceived by the normal man of those times as attainable. 
Every clime and age has had its norm, its average measure of 
attainment—the supposed limit of realization; but the human 
soul knows no such limit and pushes on, conceiving higher 
ideals and evolving up to them. 

It is the personal man, that segment of the greater self 
which is ever engaged in the effort of adjusting itself to the 
imperative now, which insists upon this norm. When the 
same personal man feels the impulses from his subliminal self 
he begins to suspect that his normal attainment is not the last 
word; that his possibilities have not been exhausted; that other 
and grander chapters will be added to the volume written by 
evolution. This limitation of the normal ideal affects every kind 
of life expression. In civics it is the blind adhesion to the 


The Normal and the Supernormal. 73 

average conception of social relations; in society it is slavery 
to conventionalism; in religion it is worship of creed; in science 
it is reverence for accepted opinion. In all it is the adhesion to 
the habitual and accepted standard of attainment and thought, 
and a desire to reduce to it and confine within its limitations all 
other effort and expression. 

It was entirely normal before the time of Copernicus to be¬ 
lieve in the geocentric system, and quite abnormal to entertain 
the possibility of the heliocentric; it was also dangerous. It 
has been, and outside of our own country it probably still is, 
quite normal to believe in the divine right of one man to rule 
over others. It is still normal to believe that customs and 
privileges acquired through centuries of violence and usurpa¬ 
tion are “vested rights.” It is still normal to think it is right 
to abdicate one’s own duty to think, and to decide for himself 
all questions, to some other self-ordained or custom-appointed 
individual. To-day it is normal do believe that there is no 
higher attainable expression of life than the average normality 
comprehended in money-getting and energy-spending strife; 
that no avenues of knowledge exist save the channels of the five 
senses; and that no other states of consciousness are knowable 
except those associated with the struggle for existence. 

That these normal ideals will all be transformed into other 
and higher ones we must inevitably conclude. With those in 
the advance of progress they have long ceased to be their ideals 
of normality; but the higher and truer conceptions must be 
classed with the supernormal until the average attainment and 
thought shall have reached them. 

Let us take a simple example to illustrate how a normal 
state of consciousness, though one that at present seems inev- • 
itable from our experience, may be nevertheless wholly false to ; 
truth. We apparently see the sun rise: yet we do not. We 
think of physical things as more or less solid: they are not. 
We may think their particles touch one another: they do not. 
We think of the so-called solid wall as impermeable: it is a 


74 


The Esoteric Art of Living . 


shadowy veil through which the subtle forces and states of 
matter pass without obstruction; the atoms that compose it are 
far apart. We think there is perfect separateness in the uni¬ 
verse: there is not; every atom acts and reacts upon others. 
We think that each mind is independent: it is not; the thoughts 
of one in some degree impinge upon the others. Thus we see 
how our dominant state may be limited by experience and the 
imperfect deductions drawn from it. With such misunder¬ 
standings and misinterpretations we have evolved states of 
consciousness that are not related to truth in all respects. 
They serve a purpose; but so long as we know nothing else we 
are out of harmony with truth. As we know that the untruth 
has no existence in fact, but only lives in the imagination, it 
can never have any permanency or element of immortality. 
So all such states evolved from and related to the non-existent, 
the unreal, must sooner or later pass away; for they correspond 
with nothing but a hallucination. 

It necessarily follows that if we would rise higher in the 
scale of being we must seek consciously to relate ourselves or 
to come into correspondence with the true in every manifesta¬ 
tion beneficent for us, upon every plane of existence; in other 
words, more perfectly to embody the cosmic mind and abide in 
its wisdom. To do this we must first be willing to abandon 
the untrue, though “normal,” however dearly we have cher¬ 
ished it. And, speaking particularly of the realm of philos¬ 
ophy, ethics, and religion, I would say that all, irrespective of 
their normality, should be cited to appear before the bar of 
the higher self and justify their claim to continuance. Thus 
as the greater conformity to truth is attained the mind con¬ 
tinually leaves the normal behind in discarded beliefs and re¬ 
linquished ideals, and finds the way to progress through the 
supernormal. 

But while many are willing to admit the propriety of ad¬ 
vance along the line of changes in beliefs and ideals, they are 
quite skeptical as to the possibility of experiences commonly 


The Normal and the Supernormal. 


75 


classed as “psychic” rightly becoming a part of our normal ex¬ 
perience and life. I have spoken generally of these ex¬ 
periences as the manifestation of the nature and faculties of the 
subliminal consciousness. A man’s opinion is weighty only 
so far as he has the opportunity to know, the wisdom to judge, 
and the impartiality to truth to declare. It is encouraging to 
find the theory herein held ably supported by men who at the 
same time are eminent in the field of science and psychical in¬ 
vestigation. Says Sir William Crookes: “Whilst it is clear 
that our knowledge of subconscious mentation is still to be de¬ 
veloped, we must beware of rashly assuming that all varia¬ 
tions from the normal waking condition are necessarily 
morbid. The human race has reached no fixed or changeless 
ideal; in every direction there is evolution as well as disin¬ 
tegration.” 

The fact that, before psychic phenomena in healthy and 
normal people began to be scientifically observed and studied, 
such phenomena were conspicuously noted in subjects in ad¬ 
mittedly abnormal conditions (malades) strengthened the con¬ 
clusion that the phenomena themselves were abnormal. Pro¬ 
fessor F. W. H. Myers says that “these are not pathological 
phenomena, but pathological revelations of normal phenomena, 
which is a very different thing.” 

Viewed from the standpoint of psychic science, the normal 
man is limited to the primary self, the objective consciousness; 
and the supernormal is the modification of that by the func¬ 
tions of the secondary self—of subliminal consciousness. It is 
evident, however, that the supernormal at one time may be¬ 
come the normal at another. That the ordinary man, the pri¬ 
mary personality, should be the ultimate expression, the limit 
of possibility, is wholly irreconcilable with the facts of this field 
of science. Says Professor Myers: “It may be that the very 
formation in us of anything so narrow and confined as what 
we know as personality is in itself a limitation of our essential 
being—a mere mode of concentration in order to meet the 


76 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


perils of environment.” This is what we would expect, a 
priori, from the theory of psychical evolution. There could 
have been no unfoldment in progressive form without first the 
establishment of a stable relationship with the environment, 
and this is effected by the normal self. That evolution 
beyond that point has occurred proves the reserved poten¬ 
tialities behind the personal self and justifies the conclusion 
that the ego possesses the same possibilities for the future. 
Upon this point, Professor Myers says: 

“Since the era of my protozoic ancestors the germ which is now 
human has shown absolutely unpredictable potentialities. Whatever be 
the part which we assign to external influence in its evolution, the fact re¬ 
mains that the germ possessed the power of responding in an indefinite 
number of ways to an indefinite number of stimuli. It was only the acci¬ 
dent of its exposure to certain stimuli and not to others which has made 
it what it now is. And, having shown itself so far modifiable as to ac¬ 
quire these highly specialized senses which I possess, it is doubtless still 
modifiable in directions as unthinkable to me as my eyesight would have 
been unthinkable to the oyster. Nor can we limit the rate of change, 
which so far as cerebral modifications are concerned may probably be 
increasingly rapid, as it has an increasingly complex material to work 
upon/’ 

Rather than attribute the present state of development to 
accident of exposure to certain stimuli, I would prefer to assign 
it most largely to the special power and purpose of responding 
to stimuli, though accidentally experienced. Now, of this 
normal man Professor Myers says: “So long as we are deal¬ 
ing with mankind from a rough point of view—as, for in¬ 
stance, in therapeutics—we may without serious error treat the 
ordinary state of health and intelligence as a type to which 
aberrant specimens ought to be recalled. But, if we wish* to 
engage in a more original, more philosophic discussion of 
man’s personality, we have no longer the right to assume that 
our common empirical standard gives any true measurement of 
the potentialities of man.” Again, if we agree that the normal 
man is a limitation of the essential being, and is “a mere mode 
of concentration in order to meet the perils of environment,” 


The Normal and the Supernormal. 


77 


this cannot be the end aimed at; there must be some other pur¬ 
pose conserved by this meeting and adjustment between the 
ego and environment. That purpose is amply evidenced and 
fulfilled (at least for the immediate present) by the expression 
of the higher thought and faculties, which are not such as nat¬ 
ural selection could evolve, and the emergence of the subliminal 
qualities and their synchronizing with the normal self. 

Says Dr. Max Dessoir: “It is only when Imagination is 
comprehended as a function of the secondary self, and Inspira¬ 
tion and change of personality are understood as projections 
from within outward, with more or less sensory clothing— 
manifestations, in short, of that externalizing process which is 
always at work within us: it is only then, I say, that the 
creative imagination of the artist is understood and traced to 
its root.” These expressions of the higher self—the concep¬ 
tions of the ideal, imagination, creative faculty, origination 
and invention, inspiration and genius—effect the divergence 
from the normal life, and class the man in the supernormal. 

In view of all this, why should one hesitate to class the 
psychic faculties among the attainments that we will and 
should realize? Speaking of a class of these, Professor 
Myers’s statement applies to all as well: “Now, I say that in so 
far as any one possesses a power of this sort, and can acquire 
cognizance, either by artifice or by some spontaneous uprush, 
of the impressions stored and the operations proceeding in 
strata deeper than his primary consciousness, to that extent is 
he superior and not inferior to ordinary humanity; more ‘nor¬ 
mal’ than the average man—if any norm there be—because he 
is more perfectly utilizing the possibilities of his being.” And 
if it be contended that the normal attainment and the normal 
man are more in harmony with the End of Life, and therefore 
more desirable than the supernormal, I would quote the same 
writer, upon the extreme contention for genius and ecstasy, 
thus: “Now, if Genius and Ectasy belong to the realm of the 
subconscious, then I say that you must first tell me what is 



7 8 


The Esoteric Art of Living. 


Reality, and what is the End of Life, before we decide whether 
Genius and Ecstasy are out of harmony with these. What is 
undoubtedly true is that our waking, emergent personality is 
that which is best suited to carry on the struggle for existence. 
Itself, as I believe, the result of natural selection, it inevitably 
represents that aspect of our being which can best help us to 
overrun the earth. More than this we cannot say.” 

Bearing upon both the origin and the destiny of this mys¬ 
terious and marvelous being as a whole, and as shedding 
further light upon the thesis herein attempted, I close the 
quotations with one from the same writer and thinker: “But 
the question of origin will still remain; and it is not really a 
hypothesis wider than another if we suppose it possible that 
that portion of the cosmic energy which operates through the 
organism of each one of us was in some sense individualized 
before its descent into generation, and pours the potentialities 
of larger being into the earthen vessels which it fills and 
overflows.” 

Therefore, if we conceive purposes of life more profound 
than are included in the normal thought; if we believe the po¬ 
tentialities of that larger being are capable of wiser and truer 
expression than it admits; if our ideals, with which our acts 
and thoughts shall seek similitude, transcend it; if we seek 
means of attaining them which are unthought of by it; if we 
catch glimpses of truths outside its pale, and believe in the at¬ 
tainment of states of consciousness other than those associated 
with the struggle for existence—we may be assured that such 
a supernormal state of being is logical in view of the past his¬ 
tory of man, is in harmony with the inherent laws of evolution, 
and creates at least the primary conditions necessary to the in¬ 
dividual realization of those hopes; also, that conscious recog¬ 
nition of and cooperation with the law will effect that consum¬ 
mation vastly sooner than ignorance and apathy left to the 
slow processes of natural selection. 







<v 


* 


■ 


JUL 9 19Q0 














Deacidified using the Bookkeeper pr 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxid 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2005 

PreservationTechnolo 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESER 
111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 160E 


i 


% 

























